The West Hartford Town Council’s Community Planning and Economic Development Committee received the Vision Zero 2025 Annual Report on Feb. 18, 2026, and plans are to continue to upgrade roadway safety and also focus on education and culture shift in 2026.

By Ronni Newton

Vision Zero is intended as a long-term strategy to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on the roadways within a 10-year period, and on Feb. 18 the Town Council’s Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED) Committee received an update on the progress made thus far in the West Hartford Vision Zero 2025 Annual Report, which was also combined with the town’s Complete Streets Report this year.

“This captures progress that we’ve made in 2025 towards our goal of zero deaths and zero serious injuries on our roadways as a result of traffic crashes by 2033,” Town Manager Rick Ledwith told CPED members, as well as other Council members and town staff that attended the meeting.

The annual report highlights accomplishments over the past year – which include the completion of 225 projects “designed to make our streets safer for everyone,” including pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists, Ledwith said. Those projects – implemented through a data-driven approach with a commitment to preventing serious incidents – range from quick-build low-cost measures such as curb extensions using bollards, to raised crosswalks, speed humps, road diets, and other safety changes in targeted high-risk areas.

The intent is for 2026 to build on the momentum of the past year, with another 284 projects planned. Included will be the installation of automated speed management cameras in 15 locations – plans which are in the process of being approved by the Connecticut Department of Transportation – as well as the beginning of an 18-month pilot for automated red-light-running cameras.

“We really expect to see shifts in not just crash statistics and driving behavior and really overall our roadway culture in town,” said Ledwith. “Changing this type of culture takes time, but we are really beginning to see encouraging signs that our strategy is working and will continue to work.”

The Vision Zero Initiative began in West Hartford in 2023, immediately following an unprecedented string of tragic incidents, including five traffic fatalities, in December 2022. The initial Vision Zero Action Plan was in draft form by the end of 2023, and adopted by the Town Council in February 2024. The 10-year timeframe began with the launch of the initiative in 2023, and utilizes a holistic and multi-faceted approach targeting policies and practices, safe design, culture, and data, to achieve the goal of eliminating deaths and serious injuries from traffic crashes.

Parker Sorenson, a civil engineer with the town who was formerly a consultant that helped draft the Vision Zero Action Plan and is now overseeing the implementation, said the town is still catching up on some of the Vision Zero Action Plan goals and is behind on some of the target dates, but ahead in the category of “safe design” projects, with anticipated movement on improving culture and practices/policies expected to be a focus. The town spent just over $2.1 million in 2025, on upgrades to sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic signal upgrades, new pavement markings and signage, quick builds, and additional bike facilities.

The data analysis is a key component of the plan, but Sorenson said since complete data from the Connecticut Crash Data Repository for 2025 is not yet available there are projected numbers used that were developed from West Hartford Police records. “Sadly there were two fatalities plus 22 serious injury collisions” in 2025, he said – a total of two more than in 2024 – while it appears that crashes with minor injuries ticked down and the total number of crashes ticked down. Both of the fatal crashes occurred in June 2025.

Seven of the serious injury crashes in 2025 involved “vulnerable users” – pedestrians or bicyclists.

Data indicates that five crashes involved bicyclists – and one of those was a single e-bike crash not involving a vehicle. In two of the incidents, a vehicle driver was cited as being at-fault, and in two cases the bicyclist was given a warning or infraction. Two crashes that were reported as involving possible serious injuries to pedestrians occurred in 2025, one on Boulevard west of Arnoldale Road and the other on Park Road at Prospect Avenue. In one case the driver was cited, and in the other case the pedestrian was cited, the report indicated.

Sorenson provided CPED with a thorough overview of the 225 projects completed in 2025 and the 284 planned for this year, thanking the Department of Public Works for their significant contribution to the efforts, which are widely dispersed throughout town and include 12 raised crosswalks, curb extensions, and the town’s renowned mini-roundabout. An interactive map of the projects can be found on the Engineering Department webpage.

In 2025, there were 20 quick-build projects completed as part of the Vision Zero action plan – including 13 curb extensions, three medians and hardened center lanes, and four pedestrian islands. The quick-build projects – as the name implies – are intended to be installed quickly and at relatively low cost, in many cases to pilot the effectiveness of a concept before making it permanent.

According to Sorenson, the five quick-builds on Sedgwick Road will become permanent fixtures when that roadway is reconstructed this summer. Permanent changes will be coming to Park Road as well when that reconstruction is done.

“We did have two modifications we had to make in 2025,” he said, at South Quaker Lane and Boulevard due to the traffic congestion it created, and at Oakwood and Flatbush due to concerns raised by the West Hartford Fire Department.

The raised crosswalks have produced notable statistics in slowing traffic, and Sorenson noted that there has been a 90% reduction in vehicles traveling over 40 mph in those locations, many of which are near schools and parks.

Among the other projects implemented in 2025, Sorenson highlighted 17 Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs), road diets on Kane Street and on Trout Brook Drive near Park Road; 33 horizontal curve sign upgrades; five Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS), including one at Boulevard and South Quaker where there was not previously a signal; intersection “daylighting” at 20 locations where striping and signage were changed to improve visibility for motorists and non-motorists; a dynamic no-turn-on-red signal installed at Asylum Avenue and North Main Street; updated clearance intervals at 16 intersections to improve timing in accordance with roadway geometry and driver behavior; installation of reflective backplate at 53 intersections; and the addition of bicycle lanes on Asylum Avenue, Kane Street, King Philip Drive, and South Quaker Lane as part of roadway resurfacing or reconstruction projects.

“Renée’s been very busy in 2025,” said Sorenson, referring to the 18 events where West Hartford Public Relations Specialist and Vision Zero Task Force member distributed reflective armbands and vests as well as car magnets. In 2025, a total of 10,000 armbands were handed out, along with 2,500 each of the vests and magnets.

“The education campaign was multi-faceted,” Sorenson said, and included PSAs from town officials, social media posts, emails, and signage at project installations. While education goals may not have been met in 2025, some of the social media posts exceeded 63,000 views, Sorenson said, and the number of followers increased from 5,000 to roughly 9,000.

In 2025, the town focused its efforts on engineering, and in response to a question from Democratic Town Councilor Barry Walters, Ledwith said education initiatives will continue to expand. “Places we will step up our efforts this year will be data and culture as well.”

Enforcement efforts from West Hartford Police are also highlighted in the Vision Zero Annual Report. “The number of motor vehicle stops is up 21% in 2025,” Sorenson said. The top-10 list of violations prompting those stops in 2025 included 2,094 for speeding, 1,083 for failure to obey a traffic control signal, 924 for distracted driving, and 448 for stop sign violations.

He also noted that West Hartford Police have added two officers to the Traffic Division, which now includes eight officers and a sergeant who is the supervisor.

“We have a very busy 2026 planned,” Sorenson said, as Vision Zero moves into the next year with 284 projects targeted.

Bi-directional speed enforcement cameras that should be implemented in 15 locations in mid-2026, and red light cameras at eight intersections in late 2026 or early 2027, will greatly amplify enforcement and safety efforts.

Also in the plans for 2026 are eight more Dynamic No-Turn-on-Red (NTOR) signals that will illuminate during the pedestrian phase at four intersections including Farmington Avenue at Trout Brook Drive and South Main and Memorial; RRFBs at 13 additional sites; improvement of street lighting on multiple corridors including New Park Avenue, Prospect Avenue, New Britain Avenue, and Oakwood Avenue; five more raised crosswalks including Buena Vista Road between Veterans Memorial Rink and Cornerstone and in front of Webster Hill Elementary School; and additional quick-builds of curb extensions, pedestrian refuge islands, and hardened centerlines.

There are also several major standalone roadway projects scheduled to take place in 2026 – Farmington Avenue as part of the West Hartford Center Infrastructure Master Plan, Park Road, Sedgwick Road, and New Park Avenue. “These all include safety improvements as part of Vision Zero which will greatly improve safety for all,” Sorenson said.

Complete Streets updates, which dovetail with Vision Zero updates, were also included in the Vision Zero 2025 Annual Report.

As an improvement to pedestrian infrastructure, the town replaced 1.8 miles of sidewalks in 2025 – but while 150 work requests were completed another 150 were added, Sorenson said. A total of 3.9 mile of bike lanes were added in 2025, some replacing sharrows with dedicated lanes, and the town’s bike facilities map has been updated to show several paved paths – including behind Bugbee School, in the MDC’s Farmington Avenue reservoir, and Elizabeth Park as part of the bike network.

Another 6.2 miles of bike lanes should be created in 2026, he said, and at that point the town will have 73% of its overall bike network completed.

“It’s overwhelming how many initiatives are going on right now,” said Minority Leader John Lyons, who is also a member of CPED. He asked Ledwith if there is collaboration with other neighboring towns, and Ledwith said while the town is making progress, he agreed “there needs to be a statewide effort” to change behavior and culture.

“The changes that we put forth in 2025 were really transformative,” added Republican Council member Jason Wang, who was a strong advocate for road safety initiatives even before he ran for election. “I’m just tickled pink with how great the changes have been. … We’re leaving our neighboring communities in the dust, we really are.”

In response to a question about serious injuries from Republican Gayle Harris, Ledwith said he expects that number to come down. “This is year two of our efforts. I’d like to see that number come down in year three and progressively come down thereafter.”

“We have made great progress from where we were,” said Democrat Tiffani McGinnis, who chairs the CPED committee.

The complete Vision Zero 2025 Annual Report, which provides detailed locations for the completed and planned projects can be viewed as a PDF below, and can also be found on the Town of West Hartford website.

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