Milwaukee County Executive Crowley and Department of Transportation Launch Phase Two of Motor Vehicle Collision Dashboard

MILWAUKEE – Motor vehicle collisions (MVC) are a leading cause of death in Milwaukee County and across the nation. Beyond death, MVCs cause significant injury and disability, as well as secondary trauma in the community. To continue Milwaukee County’s history of informed, data-driven decision making, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley announced the Motor Vehicle Collision (MVC) Dashboard with the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) and the Milwaukee Area Safe Streets Taskforce (MASST) in 2024. The MVC Dashboard is part of a three-phase plan by MASST, and on March 11, 2025, these collaborating entities came together to launch Phase Two.

The goal of the MVC Dashboard is to create a public-facing, comprehensive map showing fatal and nonfatal collisions throughout Milwaukee County, accompanied by charts demonstrating demographics and characteristics of crashes through an equity lens. With the second phase of this initiative, the dashboard has been updated to incorporate internal and external stakeholder feedback and leverage statistical and geospatial technologies to identify hotspots for MVCs in Milwaukee County.

“In Phase One, we collected the data and made it publicly accessible to the community, but with the Phase Two update, we are helping to tell the story of what this data means for our residents,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. “This dashboard helps my administration and other municipalities in Milwaukee County make policy decisions that will have the largest positive impact on the community. But, as we collaboratively work to address reckless driving and move toward our goal of Vision Zero, everybody has a part to play. We need all of us, together, working to save lives.”

One major update to the dashboard is the “Hotspots” tab to create a visualized storyboard highlighting key trends in MVCs in Milwaukee County by road segment and crash density over four-month increments. Users can filter the data by crash type – bicycle, pedestrian, stolen vehicles, fatal crashes, among others. Injuries and deaths from MVCs are not equitably distributed, disproportionately affecting low-income populations and people of color. The visualization of this data allows experts to identify these disparities and tailor initiatives to maximize their impact.

“The data tells us that while overall crashes in Milwaukee County have declined 14% since 2019, fatal injuries have actually increased by 34%,” said Milwaukee County Chief Health Policy Advisor Dr. Ben Weston. “This means the crashes that do occur are more severe, more deadly, and more devastating to families and communities. Behind every statistic is a person, a mother, a child, a friend, whose life was forever changed by a preventable crash.”

In addition to the creation and utilization of the MVC Dashboard, MCDOT launched the Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project in 2023. This effort is focused on increasing multimodal safety and addressing reckless driving across all 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County. In August 2024, County Executive Crowley signed legislation affirming Milwaukee County’s commitment to Vision Zero by 2037. And last month, County Executive Crowley signed a resolution to adopt the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, continuing the collaborative work of the Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project. These initiatives work in tandem to ensure a comprehensive plan to eliminate fatal and serious injury collisions.

“This dashboard ties directly into the work of Milwaukee County’s Complete Communities Transportation Planning Project, which is helping us address reckless driving and multimodal safety across all 19 of our municipalities,” said MCDOT Director Donna Brown-Martin. “Having this information at the fingertips of every Milwaukee County resident can help them keep safety at the forefront as they travel around the community.”

The Milwaukee Area Safe Streets Taskforce is a broad, community-engaged collaborative group with members from academia, fire and EMS, law enforcement, local, regional, and state government, and community organizations. This public-private partnership demonstrates the importance of cross-sector collaboration to make positive, sustainable change in the Milwaukee community.

The Motor Vehicle Collision Dashboard can be found at county.milwaukee.gov/MVC or on the MCDOT Complete Community Transportation Planning Project homepage at county.milwaukee.gov/CompleteCommunities.

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.