Paint Bullard Parkway bridge with Vision Zero leaders in Temple Terrace

Do you like to spray paint?

You can join the Hillsborough MPO's Vision Zero coalition in Temple Terrace on Tuesday, April 25th, to paint a pop-up green lane for cyclists along the Bullard Parkway Bridge in the first of a series of actionable efforts in the ''Paint Saves Lives'' action track that is central to the Vision Zero initiative.

The April 25 workshop is the third in a series of public workshops being held by the Hillsborough MPO Policy Committee as part of the Vision Zero initiative to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities on Tampa area streets to zero. By design, Vision Zero focuses on a framework of data-driven efforts to educate motorists, cyclists and pedestrians about sharing roadways safely; encourage community engagement with local policy-makers to create connected and walkable neighborhoods; enforce equitable laws for safe motorist and pedestrian behavior, and implement multimodal design policies for pedestrian and bicycle-friendly roadways. 

The first two Vision Zero workshops brought together team strategizers for each ''Action Track'' outlined by the program.

Action Track teams are comprised of county commissioners, city council members, law enforcement officials, traffic engineers, members of the MPO Policy Committee, and bicycle and pedestrian safety advocates who address concerns and brainstorm possible solutions for Hillsborough area streets -- currently ranked the 7th deadliest in the nation for pedestrians. 

The four Vision Zero Action Tracks are as follows: 

• Paint Saves Lives: low-cost, high-impact engineering strategies for safer streets
• One Message, Many Voices: public education and awareness strategies
• Consistent and Fair: community-oriented law enforcement
• The Future Will Not Be Like the Past: context-sensitive design for walkable communities

On Tuesday morning starting at 8:30 a.m. the Vision Zero team will meet at The Temple Terrace Presbyterian Church at 420 Bullard Parkway to unpack a series of outlines that include specific actions and initiatives, timeline estimates, implementation resources and accountability for Vision Zero solutions for each Action Track. 

The Vision Zero task force will demonstrate its first actionable effort at the Bullard Parkway Bridge, where volunteers will paint 4½-foot-wide green bicycle lanes to demonstrate how such low-cost, 'pop-up' engineering efforts can improve motorist awareness and safety for cyclists -- a directly applicable example of the 'Paint Saves Lives' action track. 

Hillsborough MPO Executive Planner, Gena Torres, notes that the Bullard Parkway bridge is currently a "choke point" for traffic that leaves unbuffered cyclists vulnerable to injury. "The city manager of Temple Terrace is interested in making it safer for cyclists, pedestrians and people traveling on the road to go over bridge. ... At a city council meeting, the idea of painting a bike lane was suggested for this purpose. We thought it would be a great idea to combine the effort with the latest Vision Zero workshop," Torres says.

Torres says Vision Zero welcomes appropriately dressed volunteers to join the (water-soluble) painting efforts on Tuesday morning (paint will be provided, just show up), as well as the workshop to follow, during which Vision Zero Action Tracks will outline their program plans for 2017.

"It's a short bridge when you're driving it, but pretty long when you're painting it. We'd love to spread the work among volunteers," Torres says. 

The Vision Zero team will meet at the Temple Terrace Presbyterian Church at 8:30 a.m. for a coffee social and will begin the painting project at 9 a.m., followed by Action Track reviews and feedback during the workshop session from 10 to 11 a.m.

To RSVP, email Gena Torres.