The Des Moines Area MPO is seeking to create a regional Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP) that will guide the region and local communities toward systemic improvements in roadway safety. The CSAP will need to meet the requirements of the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A), and the process of developing the CSAP is equally important to shift the roadway safety culture in the Des Moines region. The CSAP will create community-based and data-driven recommendations that will strive to eliminate fatal and serious roadway crashes in addition to projects that prioritize equity and could leverage funding and implementation.

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What is the Des Moines Area MPO?

The Metropolitan Planning Organization acts as the formal transportation planning body for the greater Des Moines metropolitan area. The planning region is over 500 square miles and includes 16 cities; the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART); four associate, non-voting cities; unincorporated portions of three counties in central Iowa; and one associate, non-voting county. The map below shows the MPO member area.

Visit the Des Moines Area MPO website.

Source: Des Moines Area MPO

What is a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan?

A CSAP is a foundational document to guide local transportation planning leaders on where the most traffic-related deaths and serious injuries occur. The CSAP is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s new Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program. These plans are developed through detailed data analysis to identify and prioritize roadway safety issues.

Key items required in a CSAP:

• Leadership Commitment and Goal Setting
• Planning Structure
• Safety Analysis
• Engagement and Collaboration
• Equity Considerations
• Policy and Process Changes
• Strategy and Project Selections
• Progress and Transparency

What is Vision Zero?

Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.

Source: Vision Zero Network

What is Safe Streets and Roads for All?

The key principles of Safe Streets and Roads for All are:

• Death/serious injury is unacceptable.
• Humans make mistakes.
• Humans are vulnerable.
• Responsibility is shared.
• Safety is proactive.
• Redundancy is crucial.

Source: FHWA

Roadway safety is an issue that affects all.

There is a real problem in the MPO area:

• 1,881 Fatal and Serious Injury Crashes in 10 years
• 311 Fatalities (one funeral every 12 days)
• 151 people in the Des Moines metropolitan area were involved in fatal and serious injury crashes in 2020