The New Jersey Target Zero Action Plan, adopted in December 2025, identified a need for more immediate responses to fatal crashes. Action G.9. calls on the state to “explore a model Target Zero Rapid Response Program for adoption by New Jersey municipalities” that “investigates and deploys countermeasures shortly after a fatal or serious injury crash using a standardized toolkit of quick build materials.” Because safety‑focused infrastructure projects often require years to plan and implement, innovative approaches that enable rapid deployment of quicker-to-implement safety measures following a crash can deliver benefits more immediately.
We interviewed champions who are rethinking traditional responses to traffic crashes, demonstrating that timely action is possible. The two programs offered different approaches of efficiently and innovatively responding to traffic crashes. We interviewed Rolf Eisinger, Vision Zero Project Manager for the City and County of Denver, along with City Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) staff, Eric Stein, PE and Jon Johnson, on Denver’s well‑established Rapid Response program. We then spoke to Kevin Krizek, Ph.D., a professor from the University of Colorado Boulder and Tila Duhaime, a lawyer and transportation safety advocate about their Emergency Streets Protocol.
Collectively, these programs demonstrate the viability of alternative strategies for addressing road fatalities and serious injuries. As New Jersey begins to implement actions from the Target Zero Action Plan, the experiences of Emergency Streets and the City and County of Denver provide valuable guidance for the development of an effective Rapid Response Program.
Denver’s Rapid Response Program: Thorough Review and Permanent changes
Denver’s Vision Zero Action Plan, adopted in 2017, establishes the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious bodily injuries by 2030 and calls for engineering reviews following every fatal and serious injury crash, leading to the creation of the Rapid Response Program. Comprised of a small team of in-house Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) engineers and planners, the Rapid Response program has expanded over time as staffing capacity and interagency relationships have evolved. DOTI staff cite consistent buy-in from city council, DOTI, Denver Police Department (DPD), and advocacy groups as key to its success. The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) also plays a supporting role in the Rapid Response Program, working with the Rapid Response Team to review crash details and implement rapid projects, especially on state-owned roadways.
The Rapid Response team reviews every fatal crash in Denver – including those that do not occur on a public roadway, regardless of roadway ownership. Each review identifies contributing factors and opportunities to implement quick-build, easier-to-install infrastructure changes, targeted enforcement, and education countermeasures. Countermeasures, such as education, enforcement, and quick-build engineering improvements, are typically implemented within six months through the Rapid Response process and are intended to be interim. Larger capital infrastructure improvements are advanced outside the Rapid Response Program through the capital process and when possible, via grant programs.
A feature of the Rapid Response Program is its ability to implement safety improvements without multi-year feasibility studies. Although these interventions are made from low-cost materials such as paint, flexible posts, signs, and rubber curb elements, they produce meaningful and measurable safety impacts.
As an example, the Rapid Response Team identified a location along East 18th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard where a northbound driver crashed into a southbound driver making a left turn. The Rapid Response Team deployed 36-inch yellow flex posts to remove access to the left turn as an interim solution and shared with us the permanent plan that includes a structural median change, hardened centerline, double yellow paint, and signage.
Figure 1: Before and after interim Rapid Response improvements.
Before Image of Interim Rapid Response Improvements to E 18th & Colorado Boulevard in Denver, CO.
After Image of Interim Rapid Response Improvements to E 18th & Colorado Boulevard in Denver, CO.
Rolf, Eric and Jon indicated that their city’s Rapid Response program has had a powerful impact beyond what it was originally intended to do. Eric stated that “the most impactful part of Rapid Response is how it influences our policy. We have several examples of how going out and doing these field views and reviewing fatal crashes […] have led to changes and updates in our city transportation engineering and design standards.” Most recently, they have updated their crosswalk design standards following a fatal crash that involved a visibility issue with a person in a wheelchair crossing in front of a semi-truck. These changes are becoming systemic, spanning the entire city, instead of just at fatal crash locations.
Emergency Streets: Reframing traffic fatalities as a public health emergency
“Emergency Streets” is a planning approach that reframes traffic fatalities as a public health issue and empowers jurisdictions to rapidly implement changes to streets in response to safety needs. These changes prioritize speed reduction and are implemented within 48 hours of a fatal crash using low-cost, temporary materials. Emergency Streets elements are usually deployed for a minimum of two weeks and are designed to bring awareness to the conditions that contributed to the crash, encouraging more cautious driving and reduced speeds.
Emergency Streets interventions focus on speed reduction after a crash. Why? Because reducing speed means reducing kinetic energy, or force, both decreasing the odds of a crash occurring and the severity of the injury, should one occur. Emergency streets help prompt decision-makers to consider a swifter path to remediation, including reassessing long-standing transportation planning practices like design guidelines and legislation.
The main goal is to achieve an immediate reduction in operating speeds toward a target of 20 miles per hour, relying on self-enforcing design rather than punitive enforcement. Emergency Streets treatments typically include temporary reduced speed signage or roadway narrowing using plastic delineators or modular barriers, bollards, in-lane markings, and enhanced pedestrian crossings or refuge areas. These materials are inexpensive, portable, and ADA-compliant.
Figure 2: Website of Emergency Streets illustrating temporary configurations
The emergency we overlook: Conditions on our roads
Denver’s Rapid Response program shows that, with support from stakeholders, response to traffic safety can take place quickly (within a few months), permanently, and at a low cost. Tila and Kevin at Emergency Streets provide action steps to address political and jurisdictional barriers that come with traffic improvements but not with other emergencies, such as a water main break.
Kevin pointed out that “if a water main were to break at the boundary between a city and a state roadway, it would be repaired immediately without the political or jurisdictional barriers that often complicate responses to traffic crashes.” He questioned why responses to roadway deaths are treated so differently. To which Tila responded, “I think one of the answers to your question would be “well, that’s different because it’s more clearly understood as an emergency infrastructure failure. We’re fixing something that’s broken.” As a society, we don’t see death on our roadway as a product of something being broken, or as an emergency, […] if our water supply was poisoned, we would expect the government to clean it up. But our transportation supply is kind of poisoning us. It’s killing 700 people a year in Colorado.” Similarly, over 500 people are killed each year on New Jersey roads, roughly a third of which are pedestrians.
Figure 3: Memorial crash location honoring Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau in Salem County, NJ
Two ghost bikes located at the crash memorial site where NHL Star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, former AHL/ECHL player, Matthew Gaudreau were killed by an impaired driver in Oldman’s Township, Salem County, NJ. (Source: Tim Bell for the Delaware Valley Bicycle Club)
What can New Jersey learn from this?
Both programs prioritize quick-build tools and interagency coordination to address traffic safety. The primary distinction lies in their approach and timeframe. Denver’s Rapid Response program conducts a more extensive post-crash review that leads to more permanent infrastructure changes, whereas Emergency Streets deploys immediate, temporary interventions with speed reduction serving as the primary countermeasure. Both have long term policy impacts that span broader systemic changes, one involving transportation engineering standards changes and the other reframing transportation safety as a public health emergency. There is an opportunity for the two to be complementary. Emergency Streets can complement Rapid Response by providing immediate speed reduction, public feedback, and other insights before permanent work is implemented.
An approach for New Jersey begins with a clear, coordinated plan for who will be involved and how agencies will work together when a fatal or life‑altering crash occurs. Rather than trying to overhaul the entire system at once, a pilot program would initially focus on a small number of cases to build a strong, repeatable model, demonstrating how rapid, data‑driven action can prevent future tragedies. Agencies can test the workflow, strengthen cross‑agency communication, and refine the tools and processes needed for a full-scale program. This approach doesn’t minimize the loss of life; it honors it by ensuring that each response is thoughtful, accountable, and designed to build a system capable of saving more lives.