Infrastructure bill seen as step in bid to cut road deaths

Measure pushes ‘safe system’ strategy to help protect against human error

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is launching a multibillion-dollar initiative to reverse a surge in road deaths and overhaul federal safety efforts, tapping new bipartisan infrastructure spending and policy changes to try to address one of the most wrenching and persistent problems in the U.S. transportation system.

The goal is to tackle what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has called an immediate “crisis,” with deaths soaring faster in the first half of 2021 than they have in more than four decades. The country’s toll of road fatalities is higher than other rich nations.

The infrastructure bill, which President Joe Biden is set to sign Monday at a White House ceremony, includes dozens of safety provisions and adds billions to the money already sent to states to curtail traffic crashes and deaths.

The funds — for improving streets, cars and human behavior — represent a sliver of a $1.2 trillion package intended to boost the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes and internet connections, coming at a time when speeding has increased and seat belt use has fallen during pandemic. But Transportation Department officials and outside safety experts say the bill, crafted by members of both parties and administration officials, also opens the door to a major shift in federal safety policy.

For decades, experts said, the arcane guidance that helps to shape what states build with federal dollars has emphasized moving more cars more quickly. Federal safety efforts have often targeted benefits at people inside those vehicles, for example, by increasing seat belt usage and a vehicle’s ability to withstand a crash.

Now, echoing strategies developed overseas and seized on by experts in crash prevention at the National Transportation Safety Board, the infrastructure bill includes language promoting a more ambitious, holistic outlook.

Known in transportation circles as a “safe system” approach, the strategy emphasizes the inevitability of human mistakes and the need to plan ahead to minimize their impact, protecting people who walk and bike in addition to those who drive. In practical terms, that might mean slower speed limits on city streets, redesigning dangerous intersections to keep drivers more alert or adding median barriers on rural divided highways to prevent head-on collisions.

Some measures could be costly. Others could slow travel. But the basic idea presented by safe system advocates is that the changes — even those initially viewed as impractical or cumbersome — are worth it to save lives.

The infrastructure bill has funds for communities eager to try the approach and includes a provision calling on states to act when pedestrian crash rates are high.

It also appropriates $5 billion for the administration’s new Safe Streets and Roads for All program, which will provide grants to cities, metro areas, towns and tribal areas, where Native Americans have faced disproportionate impacts from crashes. The bill also authorizes another $1 billion over five years.

“We cannot and should not accept these fatalities as simply a part of everyday life in America,” Buttigieg said last month.

The infrastructure bill includes a highway provision that formally defines a “safe system approach,” a step advocates see as an important congressional endorsement. It cites the “likelihood of human error” and emphasizes roadway designs that consider “the ability of the human body to withstand impact forces.”

The bill also points to the need to protect “vulnerable road users,” including pedestrians, bicyclists and others. It instructs states, within two years, to map out all serious injuries and deaths among them, including road conditions and individual demographics, and identify highrisk spots and possible fixes. If vulnerable users make up 15% or more of statewide fatalities in a year, state officials must spend at least 15% of certain safety funds to confront the problem.

The bill also includes funding for other alternatives to driving, including a historic investment in transit and the biggest infusion for rail since Amtrak’s founding.

Those moves, like the safety initiatives, are tied to other administration priorities, including cutting emissions and addressing transportation inequities. Making commuting by bike or on foot safe has broader environmental, health and quality of life benefits, advocates said.

Amid rising death tolls on the nation’s roads, some communities have bolted plastic posts in roadways to slow motorists or keep them from veering too close to people, or created makeshift medians to help pedestrians across dicey thoroughfares. The bill would expand those measures to other communities and bring more permanent solutions, advocates said.