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Cyclist deaths and calls for a future without them go hand-in-hand in Ottawa these days. After every tragic incident, from the fatal collision with a truck that killed Nusrat Jahan in 2016 to the Tuesday death of 13-year-old Simon Peter Khouri after his bike was hit by a car in Orléans, community advocates have cried out for Vision Zero.

The road safety program began in Sweden in 1997 and has since been adopted by other jurisdictions around the world. Its goal is elimination of all traffic fatalities and serious injuries and its tenets include recognition that everyone has the right to safe travel, that decision-makers are responsible for helping ensure this and that human error is inevitable, but infrastructure must be designed to reduce the chance that crashes cause grievous injury or death.

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Ottawa’s city planners have already pledged to consider the program’s principles in creating a new road safety action plan. Against this backdrop and with yet another tragedy galvanizing calls for the full-fledged adoption of Vision Zero in Ottawa, the time is ripe for a critical look at the program, its effectiveness and what it will take to achieve safer roads in this city.