Changing Lens of Transportation Safety - Combining a Health Assessment and Road Audit

About the Program

Category: Transportation (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

Clackamas County, one of three counties in the Portland Metropolitan Area, encompasses 1,879 square miles in northwest Oregon. More than 3,000 miles of road, including 1,400 owned by the County, connect its 380,000 residents. The safety and operations of the transportation system are critical. As the County works towards the goals outlined in its Transportation Safety Action Plan, which was adopted in 2012, staff is building relationships with other departments and discussing their role in creating a broad safety culture. One relationship receiving increased attention is the one between transportation and health. With encouragement from the Oregon Health Authority, Clackamas County Public Health, Traffic Engineering and Transportation Planning, and Clackamas Safe Communities completed a pilot project that paired a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) with a Road Safety Audit (RSA). The goals were to understand how transportation decisions affect health and safety, and to develop a strategy for considering health in the County's transportation engineering, planning and maintenance work. In addition to achieving these goals, the team created an environment in which transportation and health sectors work together on factors that link the two disciplines, better utilize resources and ultimately create a countywide safety culture for all employees and residents.