County Executive David Crowley Approves Legislation Combatting Reckless Driving and Fatal Crashes

MILWAUKEE – Today, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signed legislation affirming Milwaukee County’s commitment to Vision Zero by the year 2037 in combatting reckless driving, traffic violence, and fatal and serious injury crashes. County Executive Crowley was joined at Sherman Phoenix by the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT), members of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, and representatives from the City of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee County Complete Communities Public Advisory Committee, and the community.

Reckless driving has reached crisis levels in Milwaukee County, directly affecting the overall health of the community. Since 2014, fatal crashes have increased drastically throughout Milwaukee County at a higher rate than a majority of the country. That’s why Milwaukee County is committing to Vision Zero, a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy and equitable mobility for all. Today, many governmental entities are successfully deploying this strategy.

“Enhancing the safety of our roads for all who use them is one of the most important issues facing the health, well-being, and economic vitality of our community. We simply must increase multimodal safety and reduce reckless driving,” said County Executive Crowley. “The time is now for collaboration between Milwaukee County and its municipalities to adopt Vision Zero and commit to eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. By setting the goal of zero deaths and zero serious injuries on our roads, we’re working to create the change our residents, families, children, and neighborhoods deserve – because lives depend on it.”

The legislation Crowley signed into law represents one of eight requirements by the U.S. Department of Transportation for Milwaukee County and all 19 municipalities to be eligible to apply for millions of dollars in federal funding to redesign and reconstruct the most hazardous intersections and roadway segments in the County. The seven other requirements are either completed or in process.

Milwaukee County has already been awarded nearly $2 million in state and federal funding that is going directly to increasing multimodal safety and reducing reckless driving.

“Working alongside Milwaukee County municipalities, we’re growing stronger, healthier, and more engaged. We will continue to exchange ideas, work to obtain federal funding, and take collective action to make our streets safer,” said Donna Brown-Martin, Director of the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation. “We do not accept that people have to die or be injured in our streets for Milwaukee County to have an efficient and robust transportation network. We must continue to invest in our roadways and adopt a culture of safety on our streets that enhance residents’ quality of life.”

In 2023, Milwaukee County launched the Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project, a new safety initiative to increase multimodal safety and address reckless driving across all 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County. As part of this effort, Crowley and MCDOT published the first-ever Transportation Safety Assessment Report in February 2024 to determine which streets should be considered “Corridors of Concern” across Milwaukee County and where resources should be focused to keep drivers, bicyclists, transit riders and pedestrians safe.

In March 2024, Crowley and the Milwaukee Area Safe Streets Taskforce (MASST) released the Motor Vehicle Collision (MVC) Dashboard to advance comprehensive, data-driven solutions to increase safety for all who use local streets and roadways. In addition, Milwaukee County is utilizing federal funding to implement street safety improvements in Greendale, Shorewood, South Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, and West Allis, as well as in partnership with the City of Milwaukee on a critical segment of the 35^th Street corridor, to combat reckless driving, calm traffic, and create safer streets for all.

More information about Milwaukee County’s efforts to combat reckless driving is available HERE.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.