Philadelphia can’t set the speed limits on roads within its own borders. Only the state can.
So city transportation officials want to persuade Harrisburg to give it the power to set speed limits more appropriate to the density of Philadelphia.
That is a top action item in the city’s new Vision Zero report, released Tuesday, which will guide traffic safety efforts for the next five years.
“We’re looking to work with the state legislature to make our roads safer,” said Christopher Puchalsky, director of policy and strategic initiatives at the Philadelphia Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems.
In Pennsylvania, as in many states, speed limits are based on the 85th percentile rule. Engineers measure speeds in a study area and set the limit based on how fast 85% of the drivers there are traveling.
“It just sort of got adopted and enshrined in law,” Puchalsky said of the principle developed from studies of rural roads in the 1950s and ’60s.
In recent years, traffic engineers, many states, and federal agencies in charge of traffic safety have been moving away from the approach and toward speeds that help prevent injuries and deaths.
“It’s one of those things we’ll look back on and say, ‘Why did people think that was a good method?’” Puchalsky said. “And we’ll all scratch our heads — or at least our grandchildren will scratch their heads.”
Pennsylvania’s legislature would need to amend the state’s vehicle code to grant Philadelphia the authority.
Similarly, the city wants to expand the use of automated speed enforcement cameras and red-light enforcement cameras. That would also require legislation.
The speed cameras on Roosevelt Boulevard are now permanent, and the city was authorized to put them on five other dangerous roads on a trial basis.
Speed cameras also went up on most of Broad Street.
Here are other takeaways from the Vision Zero report:
Traffic deaths are still high in Philly
In 2024, 120 people were killed in vehicle crashes in the city. The number of fatalities has been trending down slightly since 2020, but that figure is still 41% higher than it was in 2015, when the Vision Zero program began.
“I think we’ve unfortunately hit a higher set-point post pandemic than we would like,” said Kelley Yemen, director of multimodal planning for the city. “We’re seeing encouraging news with this year, but we’ve got two months to go and are holding our breaths.”
Yemen said the city has seen a 20% reduction in crashes on corridors where Vision Zero has been able to do traffic-calming projects such as installing speed cushions, implementing road diets that slow drivers, and installing separated bike lanes.
“As we get further out from the pandemic, we’re also hoping we reset some cultural norms on our streets, whether it’s through automated speed enforcement, red-light cameras, or working with [the police department],” she said.
The size of Philly’s problem
Philadelphia is an old, dense city with a robust transit system, similar to New York and Boston. But its rate of traffic-related deaths per 100,000 people is many times New York’s — and most closely resembles that of Los Angeles, the Vision Zero report noted, citing federal data from 2019 through 2023.
Philadelphia had 8.48 traffic deaths per 100,000 people, and Los Angeles had 8.11 per 100,000 residents.
“We are still reviewing the plan, but our initial reaction is that the goals set forth are not transformational enough to address the climbing traffic death statistics,” said Jessie Amadio, an organizer with Philly Bike Action.
“Vision Zero safety interventions work in the places they are installed,” but annual progress is too slow, she said.
Factors that make a crash severe
Speeding was the leading contributing factor in serious injury and fatal crashes between 2020 and 2024, present in 19%, the report said. Drivers impaired by alcohol or drugs were involved in 8% of the crashes, and 8% ran a red traffic light. Distracted driving was responsible in 4% of crashes, and running stop signs in 2%.
People walking or using a personal mobility device were involved in 6% of crashes from 2002 through 2024 but were 40% of those who were killed, the report found.
Thirty-eight percent of people who died were in motor vehicles.
What were residents’ biggest concerns and asks?
The Philadelphia Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems heard from about 3,000 city residents about their biggest concerns and preferred responses, said Marco Gorini, the Vision Zero program manager.
Speeding was the topmost concern, cited by 24% of the people participating, followed by drivers running red lights and stop signs, cited by 23%.
People were reached at roundtables involving more than 80 community groups, by online services, and through a polling firm that randomly queried 1,500 Philadelphians representative of the city’s overall population.
Participants supported tough enforcement by automated cameras and police against those violations by wide margins.
Infrastructure-related changes work best to protect people and change driver behavior, residents said, and they clamored for more traffic-calming measures and street redesigns, according to Gorini. They want to prioritize changes around schools, senior centers, and public parks.
Besides enforcement and traffic-slowing infrastructure, residents expressed strong support for more safety education — instruction for high school students on safe driving (76%) and education for young students on safe walking and biking (71%).
And another thing: People want transparency with safety efforts.
“It’s very important that we regularly report on the state of traffic safety in Philadelphia and the results of Vision Zero interventions,” Gorini said. “This ensures accountability and helps the public understand what the issues are and how efforts to address them are going.”
Next steps
The city will be developing a spending plan for new safety projects for the next annual budget, due in the first quarter of 2026. And figuring how to pay for them from city funds and state and federal grants.
