LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Safety on Louisville streets is now boiled down to a map outlining the 53 most dangerous roads in the metro.
Louisville Metro Government's Vision Zero released it's first-ever High Injury Network map.
It shows the number of crashes that have occurred between 2018-2022 and where they happened.
City and state leaders are now using this data to prioritize how to focus limited resources on improving safety along high priority and dangerous roads.
Chris Glasser is the director of Streets for People, a Louisville organization aimed at creating safer streets for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.
His biggest concern is gaining financial support from the legislative level, and using the support to make roadways safer for everyone, not just drivers.
"To me, the big question is not 'is there buy-in at the city level for these kinds of improvements,' but 'is there buy-in at the state level?'" Glasser asked. "What is the plan for investment? And are we tackling it with the sense of urgency that we should?"
Glasser is an advocate for all road users, and said he thinks the map is a good resource the city has produced to start the conversation surrounding why it's important to improve already existing roads instead of solely focusing on road widening projects to expand capacity for drivers on the roadways.
"There are a lot of dollars out there to spend, let's be smart about how we're spending them," he said. "What is the quality of life impact on the residents next to the street, or how does it impact the width of the sidewalk, are there any street trees at all in this area? These are things that are generally not taken into account with the road designs that we have out there.”
Stretches of Taylor Boulevard take up two of the top five spots of the map's "priority ranking" for safety improvements.
Douglas Parker lives in the West End, and drives up and down Taylor Boulevard frequently to get to work.
"The roads down here suck! There are potholes and everything and it's ridiculous," he said. "I like the roads. We don't have a choice. But I like my tires, too. Tires are expensive. And if you keep replacing them every time you get a pothole…you can't go on the expressway without hitting a pothole! I don't understand because this is the largest city in Kentucky and the roads are bad! That's not right."
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet owns 85% of the roads on the High Injury Network map.
There have been over 900 deaths and over 4,000 injuries on Louisville roads since 2016.
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