Yesterday at Vancouver City Council, Ken Sim’s ABC majority voted to gut the Vision Zero Safe Mobility Plan by rejecting safer speed limits on the city’s most dangerous roads.
The data-backed plan would have lowered the speed limit to 40 or 30km/h on select major roadways with high pedestrian activity downtown and on community shopping streets. Major roads like these are where 93% of fatalities and 88% of serious injury crashes occur in Vancouver1. Lower speed limits on major streets have already been implemented in many cities around the world and within Canada, and are a critical step to eliminate fatalities on our roads.
This near-term action was a key component of the proposed plan that would have saved lives. It was supported by countless stakeholders including transportation engineers, safe streets advocates, health care experts, and businesses; and had near-unanimous public support. Councillors voted along party lines to remove this aspect of the plan, with non-ABC councillors opposing this amendment. Immediately after voting to gut the most important element of the plan, ABC Councillor Lisa Dominato shared that she would be “wholeheartedly supporting this report in its entirety.” This cowardly cynicism is shameful.
This comprehensive plan was built on the five pillars of the vision zero systems approach to road safety: safe speeds, safe streets, safe people, safe vehicles, and post-crash response. There is a reason that safe speeds are placed first. The city’s own report showed that pedestrian fatalities decrease dramatically when vehicle speeds are reduced:
If we had all these elements working together, the plan would have put the city on track to meaningfully reduce road deaths every year, with the goal of reaching zero by 2050. With the safe speeds element now significantly weakened, it is hard to imagine that being achieved.
Today’s vote follows a pattern of ABC voting against key road safety measures, including cancelling planned active transport lanes on Broadway; watering down a proposed speed reduction on Cornwall Avenue; voting against safe streets for Halloween trick-or-treating; and opting for “more study” instead of intersection safety cameras at our most dangerous intersections. For a party that talks so much about public safety, it’s clear that they don’t actually care about this issue.
The amended plan still contains several significant road safety wins for the city. It includes a plan for traffic calming on E. Hastings, cycling network expansions, new annual traffic fatality reports, and more.
We are grateful to Councillor Lucy Maloney whose 2025 motion sparked the creation of this new plan. Likewise, we are grateful to Councillors Orr, Bligh, and Fry who made impassioned statements in favour of road safety. Finally a huge thanks to the nearly 50 speakers who signed up to support the motion and share their stories, and more than 275 who wrote to council in favour of the plan; know that you made a real difference in getting these many good things across the finish line.
Vision Zero Vancouver will keep fighting for safe streets and public safety, unlike our hypocritical Mayor and his ABC councillors. We urge all Vancouverites to keep road safety at the top of their mind when they cast their ballots this October.
Vision Zero Vancouver 