Whitmire ‘on board with’ Vision Zero

John Whitmire insists he supports Vision Zero, the city’s action plan to make Houston streets safer. The ultimate goal is zero people losing their lives in car crashes by 2030. Zero pedestrians killed just crossing a street. Zero new ghost bikes haunting curbs across town where cyclists died nearby.

Some are questioning Whitmire’s commitment to street safety after a few recent moves, including the removal of concrete medians recently installed along Houston Avenue and his ordering a review of bike lanes and other features of the new 11th Street redesign in the Heights.

Whitmire answers the doubts with a story.

Several years ago, he says he was about fed up with the lack of a pedestrian crosswalk at Blossom and Westcott streets in his Crestwood neighborhood. When the Memorial Park Conservancy completed the park’s 100-acre Eastern Glades section in 2020, it made Blossom Street the main pedestrian entrance. Anyone approaching from the east, whether pushing a stroller or riding a bicycle, would likely have to cross a perilous, four-lane intersection where cars whip through at lethal speeds.

Whitmire, a state senator at the time, did what any concerned citizen would do: he filed a 311 complaint. No response. So he did what any conscientious elected official would do: he called the head of the city’s public works department and pushed for a crosswalk. He says he was told that the city didn’t have the $100,000 it would cost. Whitmire offered to use his political clout in Austin to help raise funds. He recalls the public works director telling him that the effort wasn’t justified because “we haven’t had enough accidents there.” While a crosswalk was eventually added, there’s no traffic signal and pedestrians, cyclists and strollers are still at risk.

That even a longtime state senator couldn’t budge the city’s inertia on a basic street improvement is part of why Whitmire says he ran for mayor.

“When people asked me to consider running I listed that as one of my concerns — pedestrian crosswalks — so, I’m on board,” Whitmire told the editorial board. “We’re gonna do them across the city. Vision Zero is important.”

That commitment might shock people reading something deeper into Whitmire’s controversial street planning measures, and his dismissive references to “anti-car activists” and the Vision

Zero accomplishments of his predecessor, Sylvester Turner.

“Mayor Whitmire views streets like highways,” Joe Cutrufo, executive director of the advocacy organization Bike Houston, told us. “It’s a very 20th century perspective that we’ve got to make sure we can move as many cars as quickly as possible from point A to point B. He’s taken a tone that sounds like it came from a bygone era.”

Whitmire has given Cutrufo and other activists, some of whom include families and friends of traffic fatality victims, good reason to be skeptical.

His approach can seem impulsive, and at times, petty. Two months ago, he bristled when we asked him whether he agreed with Turner’s desire to see a “paradigm change” in transportation policy, saying, “Don’t put Sylvester’s words in my mouth.” He referred to David Fields and Veronica O. Davis, Turner’s chief transportation planner and deputy public works director for traffic operations, respectively, as “anticar activists.” Both resigned weeks after Whitmire was sworn in.

Whitmire ordered the Houston Avenue medians removed in February without any input from Mario Castillo, the area’s City Council member, who questions the justification for dismantling the project. And the new mayor’s review of the 11th Street project, which reduced a 1.5-mile stretch from four lanes to two and installed protected bike lanes on either side, came days after it was named “project of the year” by the Texas chapter of the American Public Works Association.

For his part, Whitmire sees the 11th Street project as something that started with a simple request for a safe crossing at the busy Nicholson Street intersection and morphed into an elaborate design. The result, he says, is a rush-hour bottleneck so severe that fire officials have told him they’ll have to avoid 11th Street entirely. Whitmire said similar concerns on Houston Avenue prompted him to remove the controversial medians: a Metro bus had previously gotten stuck there and a nearby fire station complained the medians made it more difficult for their trucks to turn.

“All I’m saying is use some common sense,” Whitmire told us. “As long as there’s 2.3 million people in the city, you’re gonna have traffic. Houston Avenue is an artery to get up on the freeway.”

He noted that Houston is unlike major American cities organized around transit such as New York. Our city is bisected by several major freeways, which ferry Houstonians to neighborhoods that sprawl endlessly in all directions.

He’s right. Houston is also the nation’s second-fastest growing metropolitan region, with more than 7 million people, according to census data. We could add another 3 million residents by 2040. If everybody brings their cars, streets and freeways will be even more clogged. We need alternatives.

Complacency is not an option. Neither is haste. Scrapping the careful planning of the Turner administration would be a mistake. While advocates were, at times, frustrated by the slow pace of redesign projects under Turner, he deserves credit for encouraging a data-driven approach that included mapping out every high-injury corridor all over the city. That map should be his starting point. It shows that 9% of Houston streets account for nearly 60% of traffic deaths and serious injuries.

We came away from our interview with the mayor persuaded that he intends to keep some version of Turner’s Vision Zero Action Plan. We believe he wants to stop the deaths and injuries and we admire his vision of doing it equitably, making sure, for instance, that more neglected neighborhoods get 3-foot sidewalks before others get 10-foot sidewalks.

Whitmire understandably wants to put his stamp on transportation policy, but we urge him to put Houstonians’ safety before any political considerations or disagreements with strident advocates. A mayor as committed to public safety as Whitmire should take an all-ofthe-above approach to street safety that includes traffic enforcement and street redesigns that slow drivers down. In 2023 alone, there were 323 traffic fatalities in Houston. Most were motorists, followed by pedestrians and cyclists. That figure is actually a marginal improvement, eight fewer fatalities than in 2022.

Whitmire told us he will release a comprehensive plan within a few months. The theme will be “options.” That includes modernizing Metro to include ride share programs and more efficient bus routes; installing and raising crosswalks all over the city; improving mobility for motorists; and beefing up traffic enforcement.

We have a few more suggestions. Installing speed bumps and street lights in residential neighborhoods. Integrate the city’s bike lane network and clear existing lanes of trash and debris. Whitmire could also leverage his Austin connections to push for a law letting cities lower speed limits to 20 mph without costly traffic studies. Whitmire voted for such a bill last session but it languished in the House after passing the Senate.

In a perfect world, the mayor would balance the safety of everyone on the road along with concerns about motorists’ mobility and quality of life. Vision Zero is indeed about achieving zero traffic deaths but it needn’t be a zerosum game. Whitmire can and should set us on a path to coexistence.

Pedestrians, cyclists and motorists must be able to share streets