Milwaukee County is expanding its analysis of fatal and non-fatal motor vehicle collisions, in hopes of getting to zero deaths within 12 years. The county also says safety improvements are coming to some streets, including in neighborhoods that face a disproportionate burden of harm.
WUWM visited one such neighborhood.
On the sidewalk outside Milwaukee’s Center Street Library, a woman who gave her name as Max was carrying a book, when she kindly stopped to tell us what she thinks of motor vehicle traffic in the area.
“Traffic through here is really ongoing. I know this building has got ran into," Max said.
Indeed, in 2021, the television station Fox 6 reported that a school bus blew through a red light and hit a county bus, which then slammed into the library. Seven people were hurt.
And vehicles now, even at non-peak times like 2 p.m., continue to blast by.
The three-way intersection here of Center St., North 27th St. and Fond du Lac Ave. is part of what’s known as a hot spot, according to law enforcement data on a comprehensive county electronic map and charts. Milwaukee County calls it the Motor Vehicle Collision Dashboard. A hot spot means there’s a high concentration of crashes, sometimes with deaths or serious injuries.
UW-Milwaukee urban planning professor Robert Schneider is on a Safe Streets Task Force that advises the dashboard.
He said the three streets coming together at an angle adds to the complexity of the problem, “but, there’s an even broader need to look at entire corridors. And so, Fond du Lac Avenue, for example, it’s State Highway 145, carries a very large amount of traffic. It has four lanes for much of this section as it goes through the neighborhoods in Milwaukee. It passes by many small businesses, schools, libraries, parks. There’s also a large amount of local activity — bus riders, pedestrians.”
And Schneider said, when the motor vehicles are traveling a high rate of speed, “there’s a higher likelihood of a serious or fatal injury.”
Dr. Ben Weston, the county’s chief health policy advisor, said the dashboard is about to start adding in data from Emergency Medical Services, or EMS, calls — that will help visualize trends down to specific blocks.
“Categorized by some of the most impactful crash types. These include fatal crashes, bicycle crashes, hit and run, motorcycle, pedestrian, stolen vehicle, wrong-way and public transit-related crashes," Weston said, during a Tuesday morning news conference.
Weston added that low-income neighborhoods and communities of color experience disproportionately higher rates of serious collisions.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who lives on Milwaukee’s north side, said the numbers are shocking.
“I live within a half-mile or mile of many of these hot spots. So, as a father of a daughter who just got her license, for me, it’s also about making sure our young people are safe, new drivers are safe, and in general, everybody is safe," Crowley said, at the news event.
The pledge to do more comes as the number of vehicle crashes in the county is down 14% since 2019. But fatal injuries are up 34% over that six-year period — an average of 87 deaths per year.
The county said it wants to reduce deaths and serious injuries 25% within three years.
So, over the next several weeks and months, the county said it will deploy temporary safety projects at high priority intersections and roadway segments — projects such as adding plastic posts, pavement paint and landscaping — on the way to possibly making permanent changes.
The county plans another news conference then.
UWM’s Schneider said reaching out to the public is essential. “What the types of education, enforcement, design strategies are, so they feel comfortable with that. This is something that is for everybody," Schneider said.
Back outside the Center Street Library, pedestrian Max said small concrete islands recently installed to narrow crosswalks have helped slow some traffic. “I would say now that they put the little bumps out, it stops it a little. But overall, I think there’s still more to come.”
And Milwaukee County says there is.
