The Weld County Safety Action Plan is associated with the USDOT’s Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program, part of a global movement to end traffic deaths that includes a shared responsibility for traffic safety among all transportation system users, designers, and operators. SS4A acknowledges that human mistakes are inevitable, and transportation systems can be designed and operated to meet demands, reducing human mistakes and the risk of avoid death or serious injuries when a crash occurs.

A Safety Action Plan outlines the most important contributing factors in fatal and serious-injury traffic crashes using data analysis and public input. To address these contributing factors, Weld County’s plan will lay out actionable, innovative, and measurable strategies that emphasize design and policy solutions, and assist in the design of complete streets, with safety features, such as lowered speed limits, for safety to keep all roadway users safe.

The Weld County Safety Action Plan will be used to implement strategies, policies, countermeasures, and processes that will, over time, reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads. These polices and processes may relate to roadway design guidelines, funding allocations, education, and emergency responders.

The plan will also be used to identify a set of Safety Action Plan road improvements projects and potential system-wide safety programs. This plan is focused on roadways in unincorporated Weld County maintained by the county. It should be noted that interstates, highways and streets within Ault, Berthoud, Brighton, Garden City, Grover, Johnstown, Lochbuie, New Raymer, Northglenn, and Windsor are not part of the Weld County Safety Action Plan. Additionally, Erie, Greeley, Kersey, Longmont, Nunn, and Timnath are completing or have completed their own Safety Action Plans.

Weld County is pursuing a Safety Action Plan to reduce the number of fatalities and severe injuries across the transportation system. This is part of a grant-funded initiative, and once completed, the plan could help the county become more competitive when applying for federal and state grant dollars for implementation actions that support safety for vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles.

The Weld County Safety Action Plan covers all road users, including people driving and riding in vehicles, people walking, people biking, and any other person using the roadway.

The Guiding Principles of the Safe System Approach include:

• Death and Serious Injuries are Unacceptable – A Safe System Approach prioritizes the elimination of crashes that result in death and serious injuries.
• Humans Make Mistakes – People will inevitably make mistakes and decisions that can lead or contribute to crashes, but the transportation system can be designed and operated to accommodate certain types and levels of human mistakes and avoid death and serious injuries when a crash occurs.
• Humans Are Vulnerable – Human bodies have physical limits for tolerating crash forces before death or serious injury occurs; therefore, it is critical to design and operate a transportation system that is human-centric and accommodates physical human vulnerabilities.
• Responsibility is Shared – All stakeholders, including government at all levels, industry, non-profit/advocacy, researchers, and the general public, are vital to preventing fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways.
• Safety is Proactive – Proactive tools should be used to identify and address safety issues in the transportation system, rather than waiting for crashes to occur and reacting afterwards.
• Redundancy is Crucial – Reducing risks requires that all parts of the transportation system be strengthened, so that if one part fails, the other parts still protect people.

The Weld County Safety Action Plan includes these eight (8) components:

1. Leadership Commitment and Goal Setting
   For Weld County, this means our Board of County Commissioners will make an official public commitment (e.g., resolution, policy, ordinance) to an eventual goal of reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries. This public commitment will include a goal and timeline for eliminating roadway fatalities and serious injuries achieved.
2. Planning Structure
   A planning structure, which for Weld County is our Safety Task Force, that is charged with oversight of the Safety Action Plan development, implementation, and monitoring.
3. Safety Analysis
   Safety analysis is the analysis of existing conditions and historical trends that provides a baseline level of crashes involving fatalities and serious injuries across Weld County. This includes an analysis of crash locations and the severity of the crashes, as well as contributing factors and crash types by relevant road users (e.g., motorists, pedestrians, transit users). Analysis of systemic and specific safety needs is also performed, as needed (e.g., high-risk road features, specific safety needs of relevant road users, public health approaches, analysis of the built environment, demographics, and structural issues). To the extent practical, the analysis will include all roadways within Weld County, without regard for ownership. Based on the analysis performed, a geospatial identification of higher-risk locations is developed, and for Weld County, this includes a High-Risk Network and High-Injury Network.
4. Engagement and Collaboration
   Engagement and collaboration involve robust engagement with the public and relevant stakeholders, including the private sector and community groups, which allows for both community representation and feedback. Information received from engagement and collaboration is analyzed and incorporated into the Action Plan. Overlapping jurisdictions are included in the process. Plans and processes are coordinated and aligned with other governmental plans and planning processes to the extent practicable.
5. Equity Considerations
   Weld County is committed to developing an action plan that will be beneficial for all residents in our county. Through a multipronged public input process, all county residents will have an opportunity to provide input for the plan, which will be incorporated along with data, impact assessments, and other analyses as we work on proposed projects and strategies.
6. Policy and Process Changes
   Our policy and process changes include assessment of current policies, plans, guidelines, and/or standards (e.g., manuals) to identify opportunities to improve how processes prioritize transportation safety. The Action Plan discusses implementation through the adoption of revised or new policies, guidelines, and/or standards, as appropriate.
7. Strategy and Project Selections
   Our strategy and project selections include identification of a comprehensive set of projects and strategies—shaped by data, the best available evidence and noteworthy practices, and stakeholder input and equity considerations—that will address the safety problems described in the Action Plan. These strategies and countermeasures focus on a Safe System Approach and effective interventions and consider multidisciplinary activities. To the extent practicable, data limitations are identified and mitigated. Once identified, the projects and strategies are prioritized in a list that provides time ranges for when the strategies and countermeasures will be deployed (e.g., short-, mid-, and long-term timeframes). The list will include specific projects and strategies, or descriptions of programs of projects and strategies, and explains prioritization criteria used. The list will contain interventions focused on infrastructure, behavioral, and/or operational safety.
8. Progress and Transparency
   Progress and transparency help Weld County to measure progress across time after our Action Plan is developed, and later updated, including outcome data. We will ensure ongoing transparency is established with residents and other key audiences. Our approach will include annual public and accessible reporting on progress toward reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries, as well as public posting of the Action Plan online.