'It is not OK for 699 people to die': Texas bristles at...

As state and local agencies take steps to reduce roadway deaths in the Houston area, officials are bristling at a federally-required assessment that sets a goal of no more than 728 deaths around the region this year — up from a goal of 699 in 2019.

“It is not OK for 699 people to die,” Jeff Weatherford, deputy director of Houston Public Works, told other members of a Houston-Galveston Area Council committee Friday. “I am going to keep on hammering that … Fundamentally, our process is flawed.”

Though more an issue of semantics, the concerns arise because local officials — notably Houston and the Texas Department of Transportation, where officials have signed pledges to end roadway fatalities — do not want to set a target that implies a number of deaths they consider acceptable.

“No one is happy about this,” said Trent Epperson, assistant city manager in Pearland and chairman of H-GAC’s Technical Advisory Committee.

The regional Transportation Policy Council is scheduled to discuss the safety target at its monthly meeting Friday.

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The Federal Highway Administration requires local planning agencies in Texas such as H-GAC to set safety and performance measures and turn them in to TxDOT, based on federally-set guidelines. The calculations are based mostly on fatalities and serious injuries in previous years and anticipated growth of driving in the region.

Houston-area lawmakers have little discretion in how they set the target, said Stephan Gage, who oversees transportation safety planning for H-GAC.

“The feds say how we do the math,” Gage said.

Based on the past five years — with final totals for 2019 uncertain — the region’s 2020 safety target is 728 deaths and 3,293 serious injuries, which would be an increase over actual fatalities and hospital visits from 2018. Gage said that demonstrates officials are hitting the targets and reducing fatalities, even if there is far more to do.

“The whole purpose of this is to make you uncomfortable,” Gage said of the safety assessment. “That should make your stomach turn a little bit … But calling it something else isn’t going to change it.”

At least 651 deaths occurred in Harris and surrounding counties last year, according to crash reports tracked by TxDOT.

“Every one of them has a story,” said James Koch, director of transportation planning and development for TxDOT’s Houston office.

The Texas Transportation Commission in May set a goal of eliminating statewide roadway deaths by 2050, and in August committed $600 million over the next two years to redesign and add safety features to roads.

Also in August, Mayor Sylvester Turner signed an executive order focused on ending roadway deaths in Houston by 2030.

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Because of the goals, officials argued the region’s safety target should be called something else and perhaps reflect at least a goal of holding the number of deaths the same as traffic increases.

“I think we asterisk that, hold it flat, and move forward,” said Bruce Mann, an advisory committee member and director of freight mobility at the Port of Houston.

dug.begley@chron.com