LOS ANGELES — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg released a plan Thursday to redesign roads, reduce speeds and push for more vehicle safety features, vowing to cut fatalities nationwide just weeks after Los Angeles closed out a year that saw a significant increase in deadly collisions on this car-centric city’s traffic-clogged roads.
The plan, called the National Roadway Safety Strategy, would be paid for by funds from the Biden administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure law, with the impossible-sounding goal of “zero roadway fatalities.” It would incorporate what it calls a “safe system approach” that acknowledges human error and physical frailty and designs a transportation system that minimizes the chance for death or serious injury when crashes occur.
New federal data to be released next week will show that fatalities have spiked nationwide, Buttigieg told the Associated Press in an interview before the plan was released.
