Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Cameron Pugh/Christian Science Monitor.
A sign marks an upcoming raised crosswalk near Union Square in Somerville, Massachusetts, Aug. 4, 2026. Raised crosswalks have been a critical part of the city’s efforts to slow down traffic.

Everywhere I turn, I see another story about how people pulling together is key for success. Today’s example shows that the effort to put a stop to traffic deaths in a Massachusetts city mainly succeeded because the community accepted some changes and inconveniences.

At the Christian Science Monitor recently, Cameron Pugh talked to residents of Somerville.

“Alessandra Seiter avoids driving. She doesn’t enjoy it, and concedes to not being very good at it. Seiter rides her bike to her job as a librarian at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, and walks everywhere else.

“That isn’t a risky lifestyle for Seiter to lead in Somerville. This densely populated Boston suburb has recently been on a streak: It’s gone three years without a traffic death, making it a prime example of what can go right in road safety.

“ ‘I’m not surprised to see Somerville really stand out as a traffic safety leader,’ says Leah Shahum, founder and executive director of the Vision Zero Network, a national nonprofit that works to eliminate traffic deaths. ‘They’ve had really consistent and strong leadership.’ …

“American streets remain hazardous. Some 36,640 people died on the road in 2025, according to government data. … Few places have had more success bucking those trends than Somerville. For roughly a decade, officials in this city of 81,000 people have focused on reducing car speeds, both by lowering limits and improving infrastructure. And it’s done so, proponents say, with a commitment to community engagement and working with volunteer residents to flag safety problems. ….

In 2017, Somerville – following in the footsteps of neighboring Boston and Cambridge – committed to ‘Vision Zero,’ an international road safety initiative holding that smartly designed infrastructure can prevent all traffic deaths. The idea started in Sweden in 1997 and has since spread around the world. More than 70 other U.S. cities, including Savannah, Georgia; New York; and Portland, Oregon, have made a Vision Zero commitment, according to Vision Zero Network.

“ ‘We as humans do not have to accept the status quo that people lose their lives on the street,’ says Brad Rawson, who has worked as Somerville’s chief transportation official for more than a decade.

“Yet the city was eyeing safer streets even before Vision Zero. In 2006, a Massachusetts Highway Department report found the city had the most accident-prone intersection in the state. In 2016, Somerville lowered speed limits on most roads from 30 mph to 25 mph, taking advantage of a recently passed state law allowing lower speed limits in certain areas. Since then, the city has created more than 500 ‘safety zones’ where the speed limit is 20 mph, according to a report by LiveableStreets.

“Vision Zero, though, is about more than legal limits. Road infrastructure, proponents say, must encourage lower speeds – and accommodate human error. To that end, Somerville has made hundreds of changes to create what Mr. Rawson calls ‘physical traffic calming.’ …

“Of those features, the speed hump has reigned supreme. Since 2019, the city has installed 139 of them. (Drivers can comfortably ride over these gradual mounds of raised road at about 15 mph – faster than they can traverse the steeper and taller speed bumps.) …

“ ‘Speed humps work. They really work,’ says Peter Furth, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University.

“Data backs that up. On Laurel Street, a short residential thoroughfare, speeds fell from between 25 to 30 mph to less than 20 mph after speed humps were added. The number of vehicles hitting pedestrians has dropped citywide for years: Somerville reported 26 such collisions in 2025, compared to 40 in 2013. Fewer cyclists are being hit, too: falling from more than 60 in 2013 to 36 last year.

“Other traffic-calming features included raised crosswalks, which can lower vehicle speeds and reduce the risk of someone getting hit by 45%, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Curb extensions – where curbs at intersections protrude into the street to shorten crosswalks – have also proven popular in Somerville.

“Other cities have seen success using similar tools. Hoboken, New Jersey, just over the river from New York City, has gone nine years without a traffic fatality.”

More at the Monitor, here.