Oslo, Norway had zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths in 2019
- Craig Clark
- 04 Jan 2021
As the City of Hamilton continues to get larger, the streets get busier with pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.
The dream of most cities – including Hamilton – is to have zero deaths related to vehicles colliding with pedestrians and cyclists; and now, the city of Oslo in Norway is one of the first in the world to go an entire year without a single pedestrian or cyclist death.
“The smartest cities are not going to be the ones with the smartest technologies, but the ones where you don’t need a car in the first place.”
Read more about Oslo car-free city center on this story by @WIRED https://t.co/U1YseZcP8Q
— Oslo Business Region (@oslobizreg) December 1, 2020
Oslo’s achievement means they are a little closer to getting to the goal of “Vision Zero,” a plan to significantly reduce the number of vehicles travelling within the city; something Hamilton is also trying to achieve with its own Vision Zero initiatives. .
City officials removed more than a thousand street-side parking spots forcing people to lean on an affordable and reliable transit system.
They also added more bike lanes and walking paths, as well as restricting cars from entering some zones that have elementary schools and other landmarks.
COVID-19 has inadvertently started similar trends in other cities where they have blocked off areas to vehicles in order to allow more space for pedestrians to safely walk in the streets.
Becoming less car dependents has also come with its criticisms such as making cities more pedestrians friendly could negatively affect trading markets. Also, some people’s dependence on vehicles is difficult to break after many parts of the city have been already designed with cars in mind.
While the debate to make Hamilton more accessible to transit continues to rumble between pedestrians, cyclists, and other members of the community, the city seems quite far off from the successes achieved in Oslo last year.
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