Know
Forward Pinellas to update Safe Streets action plan
The initiative will include new data from the past five years.
Forward Pinellas is updating its Safe Streets Pinellas Action Plan, which was designed to help decrease the number of serious injuries and deaths on the county’s roadways.
The land use and transportation planning agency recently received a $400,000 U.S. Department of Transportation grant to fund the two-year process.
First adopted in 2021, the plan identifies dangerous roadways in the area and proposes strategies to reduce casualties based on data-driven analysis.
The updated document will include data from the past five years, said Forward Pinellas principal planner Valerie Brookens. The original plan included data from 2014 to 2019.
Roughly five percent of roadways are in the high-injury network, where 60-70 percent of fatal and serious injury crashes happen, she explained.
Forward Pinellas will reevaluate the high-injury network, which includes U.S. 19 hotspots. Additionally, it will introduce a new high-risk network in the revised plan, Brookens said.
These roads have the “characteristics” to become dangerous. Some may not be on the state roadway system and are controlled by municipality governments.
Additionally, Forward Pinellas will be using near-miss technology to collect data in areas where less serious accidents occur. It will place cameras in up to 10 locations as a proactive measure, Brookens said.
This will help the organization make recommendations before the crashes get more severe.
To aid in updating the plan, Forward Pinellas has established a task force of “diverse” community members and stakeholders, including law enforcement officers, trauma center representatives, engineers and other first responders.
The group, which will meet for the first time by the end of the year, will come together at least six times throughout the process to provide guidance.
“We want to look at it from a safe systems approach,” Brookens explained. “It’s going to take a lot of different views to come up with solutions.”
For Brookens, these efforts are all about saving lives. “On average, two people are killed or seriously injured on Pinellas County roadways each day,” according to Forward Pinellas data.
The organization will be hosting a Week of Remembrance Nov. 10-14 to honor the lives that have been lost or seriously impacted by roadway crashes in Pinellas. Community members can share their stories here, which will potentially be featured on Forward Pinellas’s social media channels.
Through its Vision Zero effort, the agency hopes to eliminate all fatal and injury-related crashes in the county by 2045.
Forward Pinellas is planning to host community workshops throughout the process to gain insights from the public. Staff will also attend pop-up events to have conversations with community members, Brookens said.
