MILWAUKEE — As daily reporting for TMJ4's year-long effort to combat reckless driving, Project: Drive Safer, comes to an end, we are looking to the future through the lens of the "3 E's," we so often talk about: Education, Engineering, and Enforcement.
On the engineering side, Kate Riordan with Milwaukee's Department of Public Works (DPW) says she is feeling optimistic.
Riordan recently won the city's "Innovator of the Year" award for her work making Milwaukee streets safer.
"For so long, we really didn't have great examples of streets," she said.
From curb extensions to lane reductions and traffic circles, street re-designs have helped calm traffic across the city. And, with more than 50 miles of protected bike lanes still in the works, and many more street re-designs to come, she says the work isn't over yet. She's encouraged to see many in the community accept the changes.
"It's not just about slowing people down or making them take more time," Riordan said. "But, it's also about building communities that are safer for everybody."
At the Milwaukee Police Department, when asked about enforcement, Captain Jeffrey Sunn of the Traffic Safety Unit said engineering and enforcement go hand-in-hand.
"The next thing with the enforcement is to, those areas that have been re-designed or re-engineered by DPW, is to start working those areas, enforcing those," said Sunn.
He said enforcement is tricky because, while the number of citations has risen over the past year, he said his team's job is more about shifting the driving culture and educating neighbors about the changes to the roads.
"The purpose of a citation is to modify the behavior. It's not the fine," said Sunn. "Yeah, you pay that. But, it's to get people to change their driving behaviors to an acceptable level to the rest of society."
Sunn says neighbors showing up to community meetings and filing citizen complaints can help drive enforcement, too. In the future, he said more technology could help with enforcement, too.
"If you could have an automated system that could issue citations for speeding, let's say, or red light violations, obviously that helps when we have a depleted police department or force," said Sunn. "But, the main thing is not citations or how many we write. The main thing is do the citizens on the street feel that things are getting better," said Sunn.
At TAPCO, A traffic safety solutions company in Milwaukee County, leaders say that technology does exist. One of the local company's owners, Andy Bergholz, said the next step is to get the private and public sectors to work together alongside policymakers.
"Within the private sector, which TAPCO is a part of, I really view our job is to inform the public sector and to the policymakers to determine sort of what next steps can occur," said Bergholz.
He also said, when allowed, data collected by tools like radar signs or wrong-way driver detection systems, for example, can help identify potential solutions to reckless driving.
"Allowing that data and proving that data back to policymakers and the public sector so corrective actions can be made," said Bergholz.
On the education front, Jodie Donabar with MPS Drive says driver's education is about to change too.
"With the DMV going back to always having a road test, that's going to add a little more to the programs or do the driving schools because now they're able to do some extra training to get them ready for the road test," said Bergholz.
Some of the focus in the driver's ed world is on recruiting certified instructors and updating class materials.
"We want to make it so that the students relate to the materials. We don't want to give them info from 1950 that does (not) pertain to today," she said.
Education, Engineering, and Enforcement. Three E's to remember as we look to combat reckless driving on city streets.
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