Policy Letter: Vision Zero Coalition FY 2028 Budget Priorities

Policy Letter: Vision Zero Coalition FY 2028 Budget Priorities

Every year, the Vision Zero Coalition advocates for the City to fund priorities to make city streets safer. This year, the Vision Zero Coalition is urging the Mayor and City Council to 

1. Fix the Fatal 15; 
2. Make streets near schools safer; and
3. Invest in adequate safety staffing at the transportation department.

Achieving vision zero will require sustained investment in safer infrastructure. We urge the city council to build on our previous investments to work towards ending senseless deaths on our streets. 

Read the full letter here. 

 

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November 5, 2026

To: 

Council President Joe LaCava

Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee

Councilmember Dr. Jennifer Campbell

Councilmember Stephen Whitburn

Councilmember Henry Foster

Councilmember Marni von Wilpert

Councilmember Raul Campillo

Councilmember Vivian Moreno 

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera

 

SUBJECT:         Vision Zero Coalition FY 2028 Budget Priorities 

             

Dear Council President Joe LaCava and members of the San Diego City Council: 

We write on behalf of the Vision Zero Coalition to outline our budget priorities for fiscal year (FY) 2028. These priorities will make it safer for children, older adults, and everyone else walking, biking, and rolling on San Diego streets. We urge you to name these requests in your budget priority memos and advocate for full funding of these priorities throughout the budget season. 

1. Now is the time to invest in safety. 

The Vision Zero Coalition is a group of organizations committed to ending senseless death by traffic violence on city streets. In 2015, when the City committed to a goal of zero traffic fatalities in ten years, 96 people were killed by traffic violence in the city.¹ In 2025, 92 people were killed.² We have a very long way to go, and it will take sustained investment to keep these promises.

Fortunately, the FY 2027 budget was a positive step in the right direction. This year’s budget requests build on this progress. We urge you to prioritize advocating for these requests to turn this momentum into sustained progress. 

2.      The City has the funds for Vision Zero investments.

 

While the City’s general fund is increasingly stretched thin, the Transportation Department’s budget continues to grow year over year. State and federal formula funding that flows to the city increases on an annual basis, and as such the funding environment for transportation priorities at the City is different from most other departments. It’s not a question of whether the City has the funds to make Vision Zero investments, it’s about how the Council and Mayor choose to prioritize the transportation funds we do have. 

 

3.      Fix the Fatal 15, the deadliest intersections in the city.

 

Eliminating traffic fatalities with limited resources requires data-driven prioritization.

Making the most dangerous hot spots safer is the most efficient way to make progress. The Fatal 15 intersections listed below have seen the highest rates of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities or serious injuries in the past ten years. The Vision Zero Coalition prioritizes improvements at dangerous areas for vulnerable road users, as collisions are more likely to result in serious injury or death.

The intersections below have all seen at least three crashes resulting in fatalities or serious injuries in the past ten years. 

 

Intersection	District
Grand Ave & Kendall St	1
Garnet Ave & Haines St	1
Camino Del Rio West & Hancock St	2
Ollie St & Sports Arena Blvd	2
Camino Del Rio North & Qualcomm Way	3
54th St & Laurel St	4
54th St & Redwood St	4
63rd St & Imperial Ave	4
Genesee Ave & Linda Vista Road	7
Frazee Road & Friars Road	7
Beyer Way & Palm Ave	8
25th St & Market St	8
20th St & Market St	8
Fairmount Av & University Av	9
Gateway Dr & Home Ave	9

 

$1.5 million^[1] should be dedicated to assessing and making improvements to the Fatal 15 intersections. Upgrades should consist of, but not be limited to:

•       Stripes: Paint ladder or zebra stripes across the crosswalk for increased visibility

•       Signal: Install a countdown signal with leading pedestrian intervals and audible prompts.

•       Quick build curb extensions: Install quick build curb extensions, which improves pedestrian visibility while shortening the crossing and slowing turning vehicles.

•       Daylighting: Paint curbs red in enhanced daylighting zones to improve visibility for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists.

We request that each council office individually name each of the Fatal 15 intersections in your budget memos. Full funding of this entire list is important to achieving city-wide safety goals.

4.      Invest in getting kids to school safely. 

This past year saw tragic fatalities of school-aged children in and around schools. 11year-old Andrew Olsen was killed and his two siblings seriously injured while crossing the street on their way to school. Six-year-old Hudson O'Loughlin was killed while biking with his family one block away from Crown Point Elementary. The routes to and surrounding schools should be the safest in the City. 

In response to these tragedies, Superintendent Bagula and the San Diego Unified School District published a report identifying priority traffic safety needs near schools.^[2] The City of San Diego should set aside $2 million in the FY 2028 Transportation Department budget to implement the highest priority requests for signage, traffic calming, and visibility improvements that are within City right of way. 

 

5.      Employ sufficient staff dedicated to transportation safety. 

Staffing within the Transportation Department reflects the City’s priorities. If the City wants to make progress towards achieving Vision Zero, it must have adequate staff dedicated to making streets safer. Staff dedicated to quick builds and complete streets improvements can make an outsized impact without leveraging additional CIP funds.

The City of San Diego has historically employed a 14-person Multi-Modal Team responsible for making complete streets improvements. The City Transportation Department has also repeatedly requested funding to establish a quick-build team. The FY 2028 budget should allocate funding to staffing the functions of both of these teams at the city in a permanent capacity. A full stand-alone Multi-Modal Team costs $2.56 million (14 FTEs), and a full stand-alone Quick Build Team costs $6.7 million (24 FTEs). A quick build team will be able to deliver the following five traffic calming projects for $3 million, at a fraction of the cost and time it would take through the CIP process.

•       University Ave & Centre St Pedestrian Refuge (District Three) ($600,000)

•       Meadowbrook Dr & Brookhaven Rd Roundabout (District Four) ($600,000)

•       Alta View Dr. & Parkside Ave Roundabout (District Four) ($600,000)

•       Del Sol Blvd & Piccard Ave Roundabout (District Eight) ($600,000)

•       Del Sol Bl & Del Sur Bl Roundabout (District Eight ($600,000)

The quick build and multimodal teams will build on implementation of the speed management plan, which was funded in the FY 2027 budget and is currently lowering speed limits across the City. The next step in realizing the safety benefits of speed limit reductions is installing traffic calming infrastructure. Quick builds are the fastest and most cost-effective way to do so. Funding these dedicated safety teams will generate exponential safety returns on the city’s investment in speed reductions.

 

6.      Conclusion 

The FY 2027 budget demonstrated that the city has the funding and the will to make San Diego streets safer. We must build on last year’s successes if we want to make real progress towards vision zero. The requests outlined in this letter will keep us moving along this path. In addition to these requests the City must finalize budget-neutral safety policies like completing the updated Street Design Manual and the Bike Master Plan Update. These policies combined with dedicated funding will make progress towards achieving our shared goal of eliminating deaths on San Diego streets. 

 

Sincerely,

Aria Grossman

Policy Manager

Circulate Planning & Policy

 

Laura Keenan

Co-Founder 

Families for Safe Streets San Diego

 

Ian Hembree

Advocacy and Community Manager

San Diego County Bicycle Coalition

 

Israel Hernandez

Associate State Director, Advocacy

AARP California

 

Anar Salayev

Executive Director BikeSD

 

Chris Roberts

Transportation Team Lead SanDiego350

 

Katie Matchett

Beautiful PB

 

CC:

Mayor Todd Gloria

Bethany Bezak, City of San Diego Chief Operating Officer

Charles Modica, City of San Diego Independent Budget Analyst

Naomi Chavez, Interim Director, Transportation Department

Heidi Vonblum, Director, City Planning Department

Jordan More, Office of the Independent Budget Analyst