Safe for All

Vision Zero's role in advancing racial equity in Austin

Executive summary

The high-profile killings of unarmed people of color in recent years, many of which occurred on public streets or sidewalks, challenged people across the country and in Austin to reexamine what role we each have in creating a more equitable society.

As called for in the  Austin Strategic Mobility Plan , we acknowledge that the City’s historical transportation and land use decisions have played a substantial role in causing and perpetuating racial inequities in Austin. From the 1928 City Plan to redlining and other discriminatory land use policies to the initial building of I-35, communities of color have been disproportionately impacted over and over again.

Over 2,400 people in Austin were seriously injured or killed in traffic crashes over the past five years, 55% of which were people of color. The emotional toll and loss of quality of life resulting from these crashes for so many of our friends, family and neighbors is unacceptable.

Based on available data, we know that the Black / African American community makes up a disproportionate share of severe crash victims and that the Hispanic or Latino community makes up an increasing share of severe crash victims in Austin. Black / African American people, for example, account for over 16% of people killed or seriously injured in crashes despite making up less than 8% of the Austin population; this disparity is most pronounced in motor vehicle and pedestrian crashes.*

*Disparities are based on a comparison of Census-defined race by Hispanic or Latino origin for the Austin population with the ethnicity of crash victims as recorded on crash reports. Note that victims of crashes that occur within Austin City Limits do not necessarily live within Austin.

Vision Zero’s goal is to reduce all fatalities and serious injuries to zero, and we must take a proactive approach in addressing these disparities to ensure that everyone in Austin has safe and equal access to employment, educational, recreational, and social opportunities.

To this end, we are reforming existing and current prioritization frameworks to ensure future investments account for the racial disparities seen in the severe crash data. We are also starting to engage in the broader community conversations that are occurring about systemic changes needed to promote equitable traffic enforcement.

While we will not be able to solve for everything across these complex systems, it is our hope that information within this StoryMap can stimulate further conversations internally and with the community regarding the role Vision Zero can play in advancing racial equity in Austin.

We invite you to continue reading the rest of this report for more details and a framework for our next steps.

How we got here

Our vision of a city where race is not a significant factor in determining your risk of being injured in a crash requires us to look at the broader systems that have created and perpetuated these inequities. While these disparities involve a complex interaction of socioeconomic factors and conditions present in the built environment, a complete understanding of the reasons for these disparities must start with the substantial role that historical transportation and land use decisions have played in causing racial inequities in Austin.

Racial segregation was codified in City policy with the adoption of the Jim Crow-era, “A City Plan for Austin, Texas” (1928), which proposed the creation of a “negro district” where the City would concentrate Black-only facilities and services as an incentive to draw Black people to a designated area in East Austin.

This was also the era of  redlining , or discriminatory lending practices backed by the Federal government that designated primarily minority neighborhoods as risky for investment or lending. Areas in red on the map to the right show Austin neighborhoods that were deemed "hazardous" by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. These practices were a primary cause of urban disinvestment in the middle part of the 20th century.

Discriminatory land use policies also took the form of  restrictive covenants and deed restrictions  that barred people of color from purchasing homes in certain neighborhoods. This made it more difficult for people of color to build equity in their homes, which has historically been one of the most significant ways for Americans to build generational wealth. These historical policies help explain much of the racial and economic segregation we see in Austin today.

These practices were particularly acute in areas which are now some of Austin’s most desirable neighborhoods. To the right, an advertisement for the Hyde Park development in Central Austin, proclaims that, “Hyde Park is exclusively for white people”.

In the middle of the twentieth century the federal government undertook a  radical new approach  to transportation policy by heavily subsidizing the construction of the Interstate Highway system. In cities across the country, transportation agencies selected routes that demolished established central neighborhoods, often where communities of color resided, to make room for the new highways, with little or no input from affected communities.

East Avenue (present day Interstate 35), shown in the photo to the right, is one such example from Austin. While racial segregation in Austin pre-dated the construction of I-35, when it was completed in the early 1960s the new highway solidified it by cutting off permeability between East and West Austin (see interactive map below).

I-35 before and after construction

Central Austin before the construction of I-35 (1940) vs present day (2019). The red lines indicate the current footprint of the highway, including frontage roads.

More recently, Austin’s rapid population growth has led to increased demand for housing in central, walkable neighborhoods; often the very neighborhoods where government policy once incentivized or encouraged racial segregation. Rising property values have led to many long-time residents, and particularly people of color, being  displaced from their homes . As people move farther from the center city they are more likely to rely on wide, high-speed roads and freeways that are inherently more risky from a traffic safety perspective.

What we found

As we have seen, discriminatory transportation and land use policies played a significant role in causing the racial and economic segregation seen today in Austin. This history also helps explain the disproportionate impact of injuries resulting from crashes on communities of color. We decided to take a closer look at the latest crash data to better understand these disparities within the Austin context.

A simple but useful way to identify racial disparities is to compare the share of crash victims by race/ethnicity to each group’s population share, a metric we call the crash victim-population ratio. A ratio above 1.0 signifies that a particular group is overrepresented among crash victims compared with their share of the citywide population.

This metric shows that over the past five years Black or African American people are overrepresented among serious injury and fatal crash victims by a factor of 2.2 compared with their share of the Austin population.

The overrepresentation of the Black or African American population among severe crash victims is even more pronounced within motor vehicle crashes and pedestrian crashes.

While some of these differences might be explained by differences in travel patterns, such as rates of walking, transit use, or vehicle ownership, those differences do not tell the whole story.  National reporting  on pedestrian crashes show that people of color, and particularly Black or African American and American Indian or Alaska Native pedestrians, are struck and killed at higher rates than Non-Hispanic White people even after controlling for differences in walking rates.

The share of serious injury and fatal crashes among communities of color in Austin is increasing over the past few years, and is increasing at a faster rate than demographic changes alone can explain.

There was an especially large increase among the Hispanic or Latino population this past year, from 33% in 2019 to 41% in 2020. Vision Zero will continue to analyze the 2020 crash data to better understand how changes in commuting patterns and teleworking seen during the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to this finding.

And finally, we know that there are racial disparities among people injured or killed trying to cross I-35. Demand to access destinations on either side of the highway, combined with a growing number of people experiencing homelessness who utilize the overpasses for shelter, has resulted in a dangerous environment for pedestrians. For example:

  • In the past five years alone, 31 of the 55 pedestrians (56%) killed on I-35 mainlanes or frontage roads were people of color, and 11 (20%) were Black or African American.
  • In the past two years, 15 of the 23 pedestrians killed on I-35 were suspected to be people experiencing homelessness, and 9 of those (60%) were people of color.

The reasons for these disparities involve a complex interaction of socioeconomic factors, conditions of the built environment, and, as we discussed in the last section, historical policy decisions and disinvestment in communities of color. 

The analysis shown here represents a baseline summary of existing conditions, and raises further questions about why these disparities exist and what can be done to address them. The next section discusses some of the ways Vision Zero is working to create a transportation system that is safe for everyone.

What we're doing

The  Austin Strategic Mobility Plan  calls for us to “acknowledge and learn from the negative effects of past transportation and land use decisions”. To this end, we acknowledge that the City’s historical transportation planning and infrastructure investments have played a role in perpetuating inequities in our community. We continually re-evaluate our safety initiatives and project prioritization frameworks to right these wrongs and support the City’s broader equity goals. Below are a few ways Vision Zero is trying to address these issues today.

Reforming existing programs

One example of where equitable investment was not considered strongly enough in the past was ATD's former Local Area Traffic Management (LATM) Program. This program’s framework relied on requests from the community for traffic calming projects, such as speed humps. A complicated application process and language barriers may have discouraged people from historically disenfranchised communities in Austin from submitting applications. Projects funded through the LATM program (red dots on map) were disproportionately located in whiter areas of Austin, and only 18 of the 87 projects were located east of I-35.

A new framework has led to more projects being selected in locations that better reflect the racial disparities seen in the crash data, and supports the ASMP target of "increas(ing) the mobility funding allocated to areas that are historically underserved." The new  Speed Management Program  identifies traffic calming projects based on citywide need, and explicitly incorporates equity criteria such as “Percentage of People in Poverty” and “Percentage of People of Color” into the scoring methodology.

The 14 projects selected to receive funding as part of the program's 2020 funding cycle are shown in orange in the map.

We are also taking a closer look at the data-informed tools we use to help prioritize safety investments and initiatives to ensure they align with our equity objectives. One tool, the  High-Injury Network  (HIN), identifies streets in Austin with a high concentration of serious injuries and fatalities. It consists of four separate modal networks for Motorcycle crashes, Bicycle crashes, Pedestrian crashes, and Motor Vehicle crashes, and each utilizes a tiered scoring system to quantify crash frequency and severity.

We found that the race/ethnicity of people involved in crashes on the combined HIN, as well as the race/ethnicity of residents in the Census tracts containing the HIN, both align closely with citywide demographics. However, further analysis revealed that higher scoring HIN segments tend to be disproportionately located in communities of color.

These findings tell us that we must be mindful of the disparities that exist within the HIN scoring, including differences within each modal network, when looking to prioritize program resources equitably.

Vision Zero has already undertaken an initiative—the  High-Injury Roadways  (HIR)—which takes a more focused approach in identifying top locations for engineering countermeasures, improved signage, and targeted enforcement on key dangerous driving behaviors.

Because the 13 sections that make up the HIRs (black lines) align closely with the highest scoring HIN segments discussed previously, they also tend to be located in areas of Austin with higher percentages of people of color. In fact, 67% of people who have been seriously injured or killed on the High-Injury Roadways over the past five years have been of a race/ethnicity other than non-Hispanic or Latino - White, compared with 56% of seriously injured or killed crash victims citywide.

Early results show a 10% additional reduction in serious injury and fatal crashes on the High-Injury Roadways compared to the city as a whole in 2020.  

We are also re-evaluating the prioritization methodology used to rank Vision Zero Intersection Safety Projects funded through the 2018 (Prop G) and 2020 Bonds (Prop B), as our past methodology considered only crash-related factors and did not explicitly consider the demographic information of victims at specific locations.

Recently, we've applied additional equity criteria to our top 74 ranked locations to identify 19 intersections with a high number and/or percentage of victims who are people of color. We will ensure these top locations are analyzed sooner than originally planned and will be looking for opportunities to do interim improvements as appropriate.

Focused traffic enforcement for safer streets

Traffic enforcement and stronger penalties for dangerous driving behaviors can be effective tools for achieving reductions in fatalities and serious injuries when utilized as part of a holistic safety strategy. As part of our commitment to prioritize equity we aim to participate in the broader community conversations about systemic changes needed to promote equitable traffic enforcement.  Recent reports  have highlighted the racial disparities associated with motor vehicle stops in Austin. We know, for example, that Black or African American people account for 15% of motor vehicle stops and 25% of the arrests resulting from traffic stops, despite making up 7-8% of the Austin population.

South Pleasant Valley Rd. High Injury Roadway

Vision Zero has established partnerships with APD to focus enforcement efforts on the driver behaviors that lead to the most severe injuries. This includes the No Refusal Initiative which aims to reduce impaired driving on our streets, and Vision Zero in Action, which focuses on speeding and distracted driving on the  High Injury Roadways  (HIR). If we can reduce crashes on the HIRs, where there is an overrepresentation of people of color involved in serious injury and fatal crashes, then we can make progress towards reducing the disproportionate impact of crashes on people of color in Austin.

Promoting equitable enforcement will take sustained effort and reform across City departments. The ongoing community conversations happening through the  Reimagining Public Safety  effort may serve as an avenue to bridge the gap between the work of Vision Zero at the programmatic level and the systemic changes desired by the community. Some cities, for example, have attempted to promote safe travel behaviors while guarding against inequitable enforcement by redefining how traffic stops occur and how prosecution of certain offenses are handled. Other cities and states have embraced the use of  automated enforcement strategies  to promote more equitable outcomes, however the use of these technologies is currently prohibited by Texas law.

Engaging with the Austin community

Crafting strategies that meaningfully address Austin’s traffic safety disparities demands that we amplify the voices of historically marginalized and disenfranchised populations to understand how their lives are impacted by unsafe streets. Our community engagement approach is grounded in a few key principles:

  • Meeting people where they are
  • Building community capacity
  • Making language accessible

Meeting people where they are

While the COVID 19 pandemic has created community engagement challenges, Vision Zero actively works to reach historically underserved communities throughout Austin. One way we do this is through scheduling meetings and events at times and locations that are convenient for people in all parts of Austin.

Community outreach conducted as part of the new Speed Management Program, for example, involved a series of five open house events in Colony Park, Southeast Austin, Central East Austin, North Austin and Downtown, in addition to an online survey that garnered over 1,100 responses.

Building community capacity

Vision Zero seeks to support efforts to build community members’ ability to provide meaningful input and wholly participate in Vision Zero activities. One way we are doing this is by gathering testimonials of people who have been affected by crashes in Austin to help raise awareness about the real impact that these tragic and preventable crashes have on our community. Scroll to the "Get Involved" section at bottom of this storymap to share your story.

Another strategy is to make crash data open and available to the Austin community through our  Vision Zero Viewer , which includes statistics on the race/ethnicity and other demographic information of crash victims.

https://visionzero.austin.gov/viewer/

Making language accessible

Austin is home to many people who do not use English as their primary language, and the Vision Zero program recognizes how this can be a barrier to equal participation. To better reach Austin’s Hispanic and Latino community we are now developing Vision Zero outreach materials and campaigns in both English and Spanish, such as our “Your Choice” / “Su Decisión” campaign on dangerous driving behaviors.

Our next steps

The reforms presented in this report are just the beginning of our effort to better promote equity within our work. Achieving our equity goals will require sustained effort and commitment by the City, our public agency partners, and our community to implement systemic changes in transportation planning and engineering, law enforcement, and traffic safety culture. Vision Zero will be working on the following items in the coming months:

  • Further equity analysis on specific locations where we are considering safety investments or initiatives;
  • Refine and implement changes to prioritization methodologies;
  • Evaluate the impacts of our investments on communities of color;
  • Participate in community conversations around systemic changes needed to promote equitable traffic enforcement, including the Reimagining Public Safety effort.
  • Continue to engage with the Texas Department of Transportation in ongoing conversations around Mobility 35 reconstruction. You can read the City of Austin response to TxDOT regarding the Mobility 35 Purpose and Need  here. 

Get involved

Learn more about Austin's history

" Destruction of Black Communities in the Name of Progress " (2019), a report produced by UT-Austin's Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis, provides a history of Austin policies that negatively impacted the city's African American community between 1865-1928.

" Inheriting Inequality ", a series of reports published by the Austin American-Statesman, provides an overview of Austin's legacy of discrimination towards African Americans and Latinos.

" The Uprooted Project ", a joint initiative led by UT-Austin faculty, provides research and policy analysis to inform local actions for combatting displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Participate in community conversations around policing

Share your input on the  Reimagining Public Safety  effort by participating in online discussions, listening sessions, an online survey, and other opportunities.

Share your story

Do you know a friend or loved one who has been killed or seriously injured in a traffic crash in Austin? If you are willing to tell your story please fill out the  Vision Zero Story Request survey  ( Spanish version ).

For questions or additional information on this StoryMap you can contact  visionzero@austintexas.gov 

South Pleasant Valley Rd. High Injury Roadway