Washington Post: “Seeking to improve what has been among the nation’s grimmest public policy challenges, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg released a plan Thursday with the goal of reducing, and eventually eliminating, tens of thousands of annual road deaths. The Transportation Department strategy calls for following a “safe system” approach that emphasizes the inevitability of human mistakes and the need for planning to minimize their impacts on everyone who uses roads. The efforts come amid new safety spending in the infrastructure law President Biden signed in November. Citing progress cutting food-poisoning deaths and workplace fatalities that would be “borderline unthinkable” today, Buttigieg said in an interview that “it might sound pie in the sky now, but … that change can happen within one human lifetime. He called the National Roadway Safety Strategy released Thursday a commitment to a goal of no road deaths. While he wouldn’t quantify the chances of reaching that goal this century — an objective that some within his department characterize as impossible — Buttigieg said, “I think we just have to get there.” “There are communities that have gotten to that already,” he said. “And I’m not just talking about Oslo, but a place like Hoboken in the U.S. has seen multiple years with zero deaths.” The New Jersey city of 60,000 across the Hudson River from Manhattan has a “Vision Zero” plan that gathers data to identify dangers to vulnerable populations. The plan includes strategies to reduce speeding and protect walkers and bikers, among other changes. Hoboken last summer pointed to a three-year stretch of no pedestrian fatalities in the city…”