Improved roadway safety that saves lives is something to celebrate. Director of Transportation Planning, Marcie Meystrik, led the East-West Gateway Council of Governments development of the “Gateway to Safer Roadways: St. Louis Regional Safety Action Plan” to reduce crash fatalities by half by 2050. Marcie’s leadership was crucial to the plan’s development and adoption. This plan is both a call to action and a blueprint for implementation.
The Action Plan was developed through three major components: engagement, safety analysis and policy review. Each component has equity woven throughout and is based on the principles of the Safe System Approach. The plan was developed with input from more than 50 stakeholder organizations. The resulting Action Plan provides region-wide recommendations along three critical strategies. The first strategy is to address safety deficiencies on the region’s high-injury network. Around 50% of fatal and serious injury crashes occur on 25% of the Region’s roadways, and improving the safety performance of these roadways will gain significant benefits. The second strategy is to systemically implement safety improvements across the system by cause, through a risk analysis. The widespread implementation of proven safety countermeasures will save lives on a wider scale. The third strategy promotes the adoption of various road safety policies and programs. Driver error causes over half the Region’s serious injuries and fatalities, and policies and programs that improve driver behavior will lower fatalities and serious injuries across the Region.
The Action Plan aims to eliminate all roadway fatal and serious injury crashes in the EWG Region and sets an achievable goal for 50% reduction by 2050 to create accountability and momentum. Reaching this goal will require hard work, commitment, and collaboration from agencies in the St. Louis Region, and will prevent 2,300 fatalities and 14,000 serious injuries in the EWG Region between now and 2050.