Making Mobility Safer for All Users
At NVCOG, we are committed to working toward Vision Zero—a future where no one is killed or seriously injured in traffic crashes. Through collaboration with our communities, state agencies, and safety partners, we support data-driven strategies that make our roads safer for everyone. From improving street design to promoting safe travel behaviors, our goal is to create a transportation system that protects all roadway users, especially the most vulnerable.
Transportation safety work within the Naugatuck Valley is funded by State and Federal programs: Safe Streets for All (SS4A), Transportation Alternatives, Community Connectivity, Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD), Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program (LOTCIP) and the Community Investment Fund (CIF).
Key Information Below
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Vision Zero is a new road safety strategy with the goal of eliminating all serious injuries and fatalities by changing basic assumptions and approaches to road safety. Vision Zero started in Sweden in the 90’s and has achieved remarkable success, spreading throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Chicago, Illinois was one of the first U.S. cities to adopt Vision Zero in 2012 and it has been replicated by various cities in the U.S. ever since. The State of Connecticut formally adopted a Vision Zero policy in 2021, which legislated a Vision Zero Council.
In September 2022, the Board of Directors of the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG) adopted a landmark resolution committing the NVCOG Planning Region—comprising nineteen member municipalities—to the goal of eliminating all serious and fatal injury crashes by the year 2060. This resolution, the first of its kind adopted by any Council of Governments in Connecticut, establishes safety as the foremost priority in the development and design of roadway projects across the region.
This effort is part of NVCOG’s regional safety campaign known as NVision Zero. The resolution also mandates the publication of regular progress updates to ensure transparency and accountability in achieving the target goal.
Between 2020 and 2024, the NVCOG Planning Region experienced 195 fatalities and 875 serious injuries due to traffic crashes—many of which occurred in Waterbury, Bristol, and the lower Naugatuck Valley towns. In response, NVCOG remains firmly committed to monitoring progress and issuing biennial reports that track the region’s advancement toward its vision.
Through the NVision Zero strategy, NVCOG plans for a transportation system that provides safe mobility for all people. Since 2015, crashes that caused deaths or serious injuries have been reported in all 19 NVCOG member communities. The NVCOG has undertaken the following data-driven strategies and initiatives to eliminate transportation-related deaths and serious injuries:
Regional Transportation Safety Plan
In support of the Vision Zero goals, the NVCOG Policy Board passed a resolution adopting the Regional Transportation Safety Plan (RSTP) on Sept. 9, 2022. RSTP’s purpose is to provide data driven countermeasures combined with public outreach to identify high risk locations and reduce the number of fatal and injury crashes. Adopted originally in 2020 and updated in 2022 to better fit the region’s Vision Zero goals, this plan will next be updated by or before 2026.
The Vision Zero Action Plan (VZAP) takes a more data-driven approach to enhance the Regional Transportation Safety Plan with a focus on eliminating or significantly reducing fatalities and serious injuries. Funded by the SS4A program, it recognizes that human errors are inevitable and prioritizes safety by considering all aspects of a transportation system, including road users, vehicles, roads, speeds, and post-crash responses.
A key tool in NVCOG’s Transportation Safety Program, Road Safety Audits (RSA), support NVision Zero goals by assessing the likelihood of serious or fatal crashes across a section of roadway. The RSA program’s objective is to enhance road safety for all users, including motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation users.
Crash Data Maps
Crash data is sourced from the Connecticut Crash Data Repository.
Click on the blue tabs for more information; select map points for details.
Federal Safety Planning
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) has integrated various performance measures into transportation planning programs, especially relating to highway safety. The Federal Highways Administration mandates the use of five data-driven, safety regulated performance measures for all program implementation. These measures include:
- Total number of serious injuries
- Rate of serious injuries
- Total number of fatalities
- Rate of fatalities
- Total number of non-motorized serious injuries and fatalities
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) works with the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG) to create targets for each of these performance measures on a yearly basis, which NVCOG may accept or develop their own targets.
The 2024 targets are provided with actual 2024 Central Naugatuck Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (CNVMPO) numbers in the table below. The 2025 proposed CNVMPO targets do not align with state performance measure targets but have been developed to reflect our region’s Vision Zero safety goals by 2060.
Measure | 2023 Target | 2023 Performance | 2025 Target (Adopted) | 2025 CNVMPO Targets (Not Adopted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of Fatalities/Year | 270 | 322 | 270 | 40 |
Rate of Fatalities/100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) | .850 | .850 | 1.085 | 1.3 |
Number of Serious Injuries/Year | 1,300 serious | 1,300 | 1,343 | 167 |
Rate of Serious Injuries/100 Million VMT | 4.30 | 4.52 | 4.30 | 5.40 |
Number of Non-Motorized Fatalities and Non-Motorized Serious Injuries | 280 | 249 | 80 | 23 |
Connecticut Initiatives
Connecticut is working toward the goal of Vision Zero through a strong network of programs, agencies, and advisory groups that are teaming up to make mobility safer for everyone. These initiatives include the following below.
The Connecticut Vision Zero Council (VZC) was established in 2021 by the Connecticut General Assembly as part of Public Act 21-28, a landmark transportation safety bill. The goal of the VZC is to create partnerships with stakeholders and develop statewide policies to eliminate transportation-related fatalities and severe injuries involving pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, motorists, and passengers.
The VZC has four subcommittees— enforcement, education, engineering, and equity— that each focus on different parts of traffic safety. In VZC’s 2024 Annual Report, each group shared ideas and recommendations to make Connecticut’s roads safer for all users.
The Connecticut Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board was created in 2009 by the Connecticut General Assembly as part of Public Act 09-154. The Board has 11 appointed members covering a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds, including bicycle and pedestrian advocates as well as professionals in engineering and planning. The goal of the advisory board is to help make walking and biking safer and more accessible across the state by looking at the need for better walking and biking options, supporting programs and projects that help people walk and bike more, advising state agencies on related policies and plans, and writing a report every year about their work.
The Board meets on the fourth Friday of every month, and the public is always welcome to attend and provide public comment and input.
Watch for Me CT is a statewide safety campaign established in 2017 in response to a spike in pedestrian fatalities. Spearheaded by the CTDOT and Connecticut Children’s Injury Prevention Center, its goal is to reduce transportation deaths and injuries through awareness, education, and enforcement.
Mobility safety issues are addressed through the following initiatives:
- Public education: Using TV, radio, online ads, billboards, and bus panels to raise awareness.
- Community outreach: Hosting events at schools, health fairs, and public venues to engage directly with residents.
- Partnerships: Collaborating with local governments, law enforcement, planners, engineers, public health professionals, and advocates.
- Educational resources: Providing materials to help leaders and educators promote safe walking and biking.
Connecticut Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a statewide program that helps students walk, bike, and roll to school safely and confidently. Led by the CTDOT, the program works with schools, families, and communities to make school travel safer, healthier, and more fun.
SRTS is based on the Five E’s:
- Education: Teaching students and drivers about safe walking and biking.
- Encouragement: Organizing fun events like Walk & Roll to School Day to get more students involved.
- Engineering: Improving sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike lanes to make routes safer.
- Enforcement: Working with local police to make sure traffic laws are followed near schools.
- Evaluation: Tracking progress and identifying areas that need more attention.
SRTS also offers walk audits, access to microgrants, and educational resources to schools and their communities, to help improve safety and encourage more students to walk and bike to school.
The Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) (2022-2026) is Connecticut’s statewide, data-driven safety plan that sets long-term goals and strategies to reduce serious injuries and deaths from traffic crashes. The current plan focuses on key safety areas like pedestrian safety, cars running off the road, and dangerous intersections. The SHSP engages different state agencies, local governments, and community groups to work collaboratively on actions to improve road safety across the state.
The Vulnerable Roadway User Assessment (VRU) is an amendment to the Strategic Highway Safety Plan and focuses specifically on people at higher risk in traffic— such as people on bikes, walking, or users of mobility devices. It provides detailed crash data analysis, identifies high-risk locations, and recommends targeted safety improvements. VRU shares ideas to help keep people safer, which include reducing how often they’re exposed to traffic, making them easier to see, raising awareness about road safety, and slowing down cars to create safer streets.
Developed by the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center (CTSRC) at UConn, the Connecticut Roadway Safety Management System (CRSMS) is a web application developed for CTDOT to implement the latest Highway Safety Manual (HSM) methods. The CRSMS is composed of a data management dashboard and six modules that utilize GIS-based tools and real-time crash data to support data-driven safety analysis and decision-making. HSM’s recommended six-step safety management process includes:
- Network Screening – integrates maps to identify high-risk locations with the greatest potential for safety improvements
- Diagnosis – analyzes crash patterns using tools like crash maps, collision diagrams, and summary statistics
- Countermeasure Selection – recommends evidence-based safety improvements using data from the national CMF Clearinghouse
- Economic Appraisal – evaluates the cost-effectiveness of proposed safety projects
- Project Prioritization – ranks projects based on safety impact and budget constraints
- Safety Effectiveness Evaluation – measures the impact of implemented projects on crash reduction at different levels
By using data to make safety decisions, this tool can help lower the number of serious injuries and deaths from traffic crashes in our state and region—and move us closer to zero.
The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) is a federal and state-funded program to make Connecticut’s roads safer by funding projects that reduce serious injuries and deaths from traffic crashes. It uses crash data to identify problem areas and helps pay for improvements such as better signs, lighting, sidewalks, and traffic signals. HSIP collaborates with the Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and the Vulnerable Roadway User (VRU) Assessment to ensure safety efforts are focused where they’re needed most. Each year, Connecticut sets safety targets and reports on their attainment in the HSIP Annual Report. If the state doesn’t meet these goals, it must create an HSIP Implementation Plan to review what’s working, find gaps, and make sure future projects are focused on saving lives and preventing injuries.
Staff Contact
Richard Donovan
Transportation Planning Director
rdonovan@nvcogct.gov