New Report on State Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessments Released

We’re thrilled to announce the release of the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment (VRUSA) Report, created through a collaborative effort by Midwest nonprofits in the RE-AMP Network! This report dives into how state Departments of Transportation in the Midwest are evaluating their efforts to address the safety of people who walk, bike, and roll on our streets.

Walking, accessibility, biking, and transit saw considerable improvements in policy and funding with the adoption of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. An often-overlooked piece of those legislative changes was the creation of a new document: the Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment (VRUSA, also pronounced Ver-roo-suh, for short).

The VRUSA came about because of a significant increase in pedestrian and cyclist crashes that resulted in serious injury and death. The number of serious injuries and deaths in vehicle crashes with pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users has been increasing since 2020.

According to the Iowa State Patrol, there were 351 traffic fatalities in Iowa in 2024 – 30% of those were vulnerable road users.

The VRUSA is a tool to evaluate how a state Department of Transportation (DOT) understands the issue of traffic violence among people who walk, roll, and bike. It also documents what state DOTs are doing to address and improve the safety of vulnerable road users. 

While every state is supposed to follow the same guidance from the Federal Highway Administration with developing their own VRUSA, that does not always look the same in practice. These documents are essentially self assessments — the onus is on states to evaluate themselves and their efforts. 

In creating their VRUSAs, each state needed to detail their efforts to protect vulnerable road users in five key areas:

1. Overview of VRU Safety Performance – what trends exist in VRU crashes and what progress is the state DOT making to address this?
2. Summary of Quantitative Analysis – what data and methodology did the state DOT use to identify high-risk areas of VRUs?
3. Summary of Consultation – who did the state DOT consult with in the community and what solutions did these individuals or groups offer?
4. Program of Projects or Strategies – what specific steps is the state DOT taking to reduce VRU crashes?
5. Safe System Approach (SSA) – how was the Safe System Approach incorporated into the state DOT’s VRUSA?

The first major deadline for states to complete and submit their VRUSA was November 2023. After that, states are expected to update the document as part of their Strategic Highway Safety Plan update, which must be completed every five years. 

1000 Friends of Iowa and others wanted to study this further. Thanks to funding from the RE-AMP Network, 1000 Friends of Iowa, along with our partners 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, Bike Cleveland, Bike Walk KC, Detroit Greenways Coalition, and Transportation Riders United, worked to analyze and compare the VRUSAs of Iowa and five other states. Then, 1000 Friends of Iowa and our partners compiled our work into the findings below:

Click here to read the report: Comparing Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessments in the Midwest