In 2022, Phoenix adopted Vision Zero, a long-range plan to eliminate all traffic deaths by 2050. The early results are mixed but not discouraging: the city recorded 278 traffic deaths in 2024, down from 307 the previous year. Phoenix spends about $10 million annually on street-level safety improvements like better lighting, crosswalks, and center medians, the kind of changes that have a track record of reducing crashes.
The problem is staffing. The police department’s traffic unit has fallen from more than 150 officers to roughly 40, which limits enforcement on the streets where speeding and impaired driving cause the most serious crashes. Seventeen speed cameras have documented over 132,000 events since launching, and city officials maintain the program is about safety rather than revenue. Meanwhile, Phoenix is still missing several of its own Vision Zero benchmarks, including reductions in pedestrian and nighttime fatalities.
For those of us here on the Suncoast, the story is familiar in a different zip code. Between snowbird season, beach traffic, and pedestrian-heavy stretches near our barrier island communities, road safety is a year-round concern that shows up in the news far too often. Phoenix is essentially running the experiment in real time, and the lesson so far is that money for engineering and crosswalks helps, but it only works alongside consistent enforcement.
What would you like to see done to make our Gulf Coast roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists?
