A project more than eight months in the making, the Billings Community Transportation Safety Plan is one step closer to a final draft.
“Our last one was in 2016, and we want to make sure what we’re doing is actually having an impact on our community and meeting some of our goals,” said Lora Mattox, the transportation planner for the Billings/Yellowstone County Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Public comment was collected at an open house on Wednesday evening, Mar. 23, 2022.
Like 2016’s plan, the goal of 2022’s plan is to reduce fatalities and serious injuries by 20%.
The number will be based on a 5-year rolling average, going from 57 fatalities to 46 by the end of 2024.
Mattox, who is heading up the project said the city came close to 2016’s goal.
“When we looked at updated crash data, we were able to see we did, we made a difference. The community reduced from an average of about 70 serious injuries and fatalities a year, to 56 by 2020. Because of how they changed calculating crash data, we didn’t hit the 20%, but we hit about 18%, which we were very happy with,” Mattox said.
The area covered by the Billings/Yellowstone County Metropolitan Planning Organization stretches from the West End past 62nd Street West, north past the Billings Heights, east past Lockwood, and south past the Briarwood subdivision.
The overall vision of the Billings CTSP is to eliminate fatal crashes and serious injuries through a culture of safety for all drivers.
“The community has to do their part and if it means asking your dad to put the seatbelt on even though they don’t like to, or making sure if you just got your driver’s license, you take your time and really figure out how everything works. We’re all in this together and if we want to make an effort to make our community safer, it really starts with us every time we get behind the wheel or make a decision,” Mattox explained.
The areas of emphasis for the 2022 plan are impaired driving, inattentive driving, lack of restraint use, speed related crashes, and attention to young drivers.
Mattox expects the first draft of the plan will be ready in late spring or early summer.
“Now DOWL will start developing the document and hopefully we’ll find some of those champions in our community that want to help us with those emphasis areas,” she said.
A champion is someone who would add to the efforts of the police department, highway patrol and sheriff’s office and unite their work.
“This is what these champions are for in each of these areas, to help move this forward. And that’s probably our biggest challenge, getting those champions to really dedicate the time to move that forward,” Mattox said.
Mattox talks passionately about the project because she has witnessed the impacts of fatal and serious injury crashes time and time again.
“I don’t want anybody to have to lose a family member, especially to things like just not putting on your seatbelt or not thinking that ‘I only had a couple of beers, it’ll be ok to drive,’ or, ‘this is a nice freeway, I’m just going to speed down it,’ if we would just think a little bit and make better choices all the time,” she said.
Community members can review documents and comment on the plan by visiting the Billings CTSP website.