Nearly 40,000 people are dying on our roads each year, and Congress must take action to address the crisis by requiring changes in policy and practice. Last week, the National Complete Streets Coalition, Transportation for America, and a coalition of 24 other national, state, and local organizations sent a letter to Congress, calling on them to immediately address safety in road design instead of letting thousands more die year after year.
Since the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed in 2021, roughly an average of 40,000 people have died per year on U.S. roads. If the trend continues, over 200,000 people will die over the course of the next five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill. The federal government has a fundamental duty to protect those who are getting killed everyday and they cannot wait until this transportation bill expires (or later) to address the roadway safety crisis. That’s why we wrote a letter calling on Congress to hold hearings on improving federal roadway design standards to prioritize safety for all roadway users, change the federal roadway design standards based on the lessons learned from those hearings, and penalize state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations that fail to improve safety.
Federal roadway design standards favor the speed of cars over the safety of everyone using the roadway, leading to a 40-year high in people killed while walking and biking, and higher roadway deaths per billion vehicle kilometers traveled than any of our peer nations. The federal government provides hundreds of millions of dollars each year to state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations which they then use to build dangerous roads constructed using roadway design standards that favor car speeds over regularly-placed crosswalks, daylighted intersections, and protected bike infrastructure. When more and more people walking and biking die on these federally funded roads, the government levies zero consequences against the main culprits, state DOTs and MPOs. Congress will try and pass a new “traditional” transportation bill by next year, a supposed “return to basics.” However, our traditional methods of funding transportation have resulted in congestion, crumbling roads, and a record number of lives lost. The U.S. cannot afford to continue with business as usual. Congress needs to hold hearings and learn from experts about road design that protects all road users, alter road design recommendations in response to what they learn, and restrict funding to states and MPOs who exacerbate the roadway safety crisis.
In a letter sent to Congress last week, we proposed three concrete actions for Congress and USDOT to take. You can read them in full in the letter, but they are:
1. Prioritize safety in all road design guidance and within the entire federal transportation program, rather than treating safety as an afterthought.
Federal roadway design guidance is inherently broken. Manuals such as the Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets from AASHTO and the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices value continuous movement of cars over the safety of those both inside and outside vehicles leading to wide, high speed roads. There is no requirement that our federal roadway design standards be proven to improve safety. It is well established that speed increases the deadliness of a roadway and that safety and speed are fundamentally incompatible, yet the design manuals our federal government recommends ignore this basic truth. This creates a dangerous environment for pedestrians, cyclists, people with disabilities, and those inside vehicles. Congress needs to ensure that our roadway design guidance is evidence-based, allows for innovation, and protects those who are walking, biking, and driving.
2. Require measurable improvements on safety from all funding recipients—with penalties for failing to perform.
Congress funneled historic amounts of money to state DOTs and MPOs in the IIJA with big promises to improve roadway safety, however those results have yet to be seen. Congress cannot continue to dole out millions without any enforceable targets, therefore Congress should tie funding to outcomes, including safety. Congress must call on these states to answer for the disappointing outcomes resulting from federal funds. If states and metropolitan planning organizations fail to meaningfully decrease the number of people dying while walking and biking on their roadways, Congress should limit their funds to programs that improve safety and repair rather than allow them to burn millions on dangerous new or expanded roads.
3. Hold hearings in the House and Senate focused specifically on how road design contributes to the roadway safety crisis and holds the key to solving it.
Reauthorization in 2026 represents our best opportunity to orient federal policy and spending toward improving safety. But we need to lay the groundwork for that bill now. Congress must hold additional hearings focused specifically on the ways road design contributes to the roadway safety crisis, why we are failing at all levels to implement safer designs, and how Congress can actively help address this crisis. They need to quickly gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between roadway design and poor safety outcomes, successful interventions to address roadway safety through design best practices, and why states repeatedly fail to implement safe road design. They must call for the best roadway design practices from at home and abroad to be more widely implemented and recognize the roadway safety crisis as a public health emergency. Congress cannot spend the next year writing a transportation bill that fails to address dangerous roadway design and its contribution to the roadway safety crisis. They need to go beyond public support for safety and show their commitment by working with experts to problem solve and address the fundamental issue of flawed roadway design through legislation and appropriations.
Congress cannot ignore the catastrophe they’ve helped create. They need to listen to the local, state, and national voices that are demanding they use their legislative authority, act now, and save lives.
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