By Brigitte Pellerin, Ottawa Citizen, January 16, 2020
Do you know how many cyclists and pedestrians were killed in traffic collisions last year in Ottawa? The official numbers are not out yet (in 2018 they were one and eight, respectively). But we know it was too many, because it was more than zero.
I talk about Vision Zero every chance I get. You know why? Because it works.
Last year in Oslo, Norway’s capital city of 673,000 inhabitants, a single person died in a road accident – after driving a vehicle into a fence.
That’s it. In all of the city, in all of the year, no pedestrian, cyclist, passenger, transit user or driver, except for that unfortunate person in the fence incident, lost their life in traffic.
(...)Oslo, by the way, has winter too. It’s actually closer to the North Pole than we are. Yet it’s not just managing without cars downtown, it’s thriving. Staying alive, too. Did I mention we should embrace Vision Zero? Because it works.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/pellerin-if-oslo-can-make-vision-zero-work-so-can-we