Richmond is launching a Department of Transportation to centralize ownership of street safety as officials confront growing resident frustration over back-to-back pedestrian deaths.
What they’re saying: “We cannot treat traffic deaths as normal,” Mayor Avula said when announcing the initiative on Thursday, noting that thousands of VCU students return Monday for spring semester.
- “And we cannot accept that losing your life while walking, crossing the street or heading to a bus stop is just part of living in a city.”
State of play: Drivers have killed six people walking in Richmond in the last three weeks, a frequency Avula called “terrifying.”
- The department, housed within Public Works and led by city transportation engineer Andy Boenau, is meant to anchor the city’s main prevention strategy: Redesign streets to make them less deadly.
- The move will consolidate traffic operations, safety projects, and crash analysis — work currently spread across multiple agencies.
- It also formally creates a single point of accountability for preventing traffic-related deaths in the city.
What else the city is doing, per Avula:
Fast tracking safety projects…