March 1, 2024

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley Announces Release of First-Ever Countywide Transportation Safety Assessment Report

Fatal Crashes Occur at Higher Rate in Milwaukee County than National Average

Residents Call for Safer Roads, More Accessible Transportation Options and Normalizing Public Transit

MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) have published the first-ever Transportation Safety Assessment Report. This is part of MCDOT’s Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project, an effort to increase multimodal safety and address reckless driving across all 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County.

The full report and additional details about the project are available at county.milwaukee.gov/CompleteCommunities.

“Enhancing the safety of our roads for all who use them is one of the most important issues facing the health and well-being of our community. We simply must increase multimodal safety and reduce reckless driving,” said County Executive David Crowley. “The time is now for collaboration between Milwaukee County and its municipalities to create comprehensive, data-driven solutions to increase safety for all who use our streets and roadways. This report moves us closer to that goal and will help us deploy strategies across Milwaukee County to keep drivers, bicyclists, transit riders and pedestrians safe.”

The Transportation Safety Assessment Report contains the following sections:

• Why We’re Here: A detailed countywide crash data analysis including trends, bicyclist and pedestrian impacts, crash inequities by age group, sex, and race and also breakdowns of crash rates by area type, street characteristics, and Crash Risk Score.
  • KEY FINDING: Black/African American residents are 2.1 times more likely to be victims of fatal or serious injury crashes in Milwaukee County; Native American residents are 1.2 times more likely.
• What We’ve Heard: A thorough recap of MCDOT’s Safe Streets Roadshow public engagement meetings, including key findings and opportunities, top Corridors of Concern for residents, observed behaviors and locations, community-supported infrastructure interventions, personal travel habits, and a community assessment, which is composed of brief recaps of public feedback by municipalities and their respective crash rates.
  • KEY FINDING: Six of the top ten most frequently mentioned Corridors of Concern are state highways, including Capitol Drive, Fond du Lac Avenue and Kinnickinnic Avenue.
• What We Can Do: Descriptions of the Safe System Approach and its objectives, explanations of Complete Communities improvements from major to quick build to low-cost, and sections on increasing multimodal activity and collaboration between local governments to build trust.
• What’s Next: Descriptions of the upcoming actions that will take place as part of the Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project, including MCDOT’s Countywide Comprehensive Safety Action Plan development.

This report was reviewed and received comments by MCDOT’s Public Advisory Committee, a group of representatives from 12 community-based organizations throughout Milwaukee County. The report was also reviewed and received comments by MCDOT’s Safety Working Group, a collection of subject matter experts across 33 different local governmental agencies and firms with specific experience in transportation engineering, public health, public works, enforcement, and education.

The release of this report represents the end of Phase One of MCDOT’s Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project. Phase Two is already underway, with the development of a countywide Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, followed by Action Plans for each participating municipality. The engagement and crash data analysis findings from Phase One have laid the groundwork for the Action Plans in Phase Two.