ADOT updates state’s strategic plan to enhance roadway safety

Strategic Highway Safety Plan focuses on reducing life-altering crashes

PHOENIX - Working with partner agencies and benefiting from public input, the Arizona Department of Transportation has completed a five-year update of the strategic plan for enhancing safety on all public roadways.

The Strategic Highway Safety Plan for 2025-2029 is a data-driven plan that establishes statewide goals, objectives and key emphasis areas that allow highway safety programs and partners to align goals and leverage resources for engineering, education, enforcement and emergency medical services. The plan also focuses on the responsibility all Arizonans have to help reduce life-altering crashes on local roads and state highways.

The effort included public meetings and benefited from thousands of comments and suggestions. As part of the in-depth process, ADOT also created the state's first Active Transportation Safety Action Plan, which aims to reduce pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities where those activities are along or intersect with the state highway system.

Both plans are posted at azdot.gov/SafetyPlan.

"I'm grateful to the many partners who collaborated on these critical blueprints for reducing life-altering crashes on roadways across Arizona," ADOT Director Jennifer Toth said. "Wherever drivers are traveling, everyone has a role to play by making safety their top priority every day. We will take these findings and engage the public further, working with partners on a campaign to inform the community about ways that simple actions can save lives."

Arizona's first Active Transportation Safety Action Plan stems from a rise in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities in Arizona, the vast majority of which occur on local roadways. The plan recommends location-specific projects along the state highway system aimed at improving safety for pedestrians and bicyclists.

"The Strategic Highway Safety Plan and Active Transportation Safety Action Plan are comprehensive, coordinated road maps for reducing crashes, deaths, injuries and property damage," said J.M. "Jesse" Torrez, Director of the Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety. "The partners in this effort are committed to generating the public awareness and community engagement needed to achieve these goals."

Federal regulations require each state to have a Strategic Highway Safety Plan for reducing fatalities and serious injuries on public roadways and to update that plan every five years. ADOT leads development of this plan in partnership with local, state, federal and other stakeholders so that all highway safety programs can leverage resources and work together effectively to enhance safety.

The updated Strategic Highway Safety Plan focuses on the following emphasis areas that account for a large percentage of life-altering crashes in Arizona: human behavior; intersections; lane departure; vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists; and incidents on tribal lands. It details dozens of strategies, including:

• improving visibility of vulnerable road users, all other users and roadway features;
• incorporating vulnerable road users more prominently in the planning, design and programming process;
• reducing high-risk movements by drivers;
• conducting high-visibility enforcement at intersections; and
• promoting safety at crash scenes.

The update is based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe System Approach, which looks at all factors affecting safety and emphasizes a shared responsibility for improving safety on roadways.

For more information, please visit azdot.gov/SafetyPlan.