Abstract
Vision Zero (VZ) is a transportation policy adopted by major cities like Philadelphia that aims to reduce or eliminate traffic violence, primarily through improvements in the transportation infrastructure. VZ prioritizes engineering (over enforcement), community engagement, and perhaps most importantly, equity. In the battle for superiority among users of land-based travel modes in America, automobile drivers have benefited from arterial highways that speed traffic flows around and through urban enclaves to reach center city business districts and from a car culture that encourages dominant behavior behind the wheel. Pedestrians have been among the losers.
In Philadelphia, as elsewhere, pedestrians who are killed are disproportionately Black and Latino/Hispanic. Moreover, the traffic violence that befell them occurred disproportionately on roadways in communities that are occupied by lower-income people and described as being “disadvantaged” or “underserved.” What more can we learn about the victims? Focusing on fatal traffic violence inflicting walkers in Philadelphia in 2023 and relying on granular data from police department databases and print and on-air media reports, research reveals that the vulnerable walkers included public transit riders; people with a range of physical, mental, and emotional abilities; night and swing shift workers; people who are marginally employed and marginally housed; and travelers on foot in communities with high rates of street crime. Furthermore, the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of a community can negatively impact the incidence of hit-and-run driving, a significant causal factor in pedestrian injuries.
Vision Zero’s goal of traffic violence abolition and greater traffic safety for pedestrians and other non-driving users of the transportation system will require not only engineering fixes, but also empowered community engagement and participation. Communities may favor positive reinforcement of safe behavior over law enforcement and negative sanctions. In contrast to car culture, communities are likely to promote “neighborliness,” not dominance, as the ethical or moral basis for pursuing social justice in the operation of automobiles.
Recommended Citation
Regina Austin,
Neighborliness vs. Car Culture: Traffic Violence, Pedestrian Deaths in Philadelphia, and Vision Zero's Concept of Equity,
2025
J. L. & MOB.
115
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/jlm/vol2025/iss1/5
Included in
Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Transportation Commons, Transportation Law Commons