Adam Reilly discusses with Brendan Kearney, the deputy director of WalkMassachusetts, and Stacy Thompson, the executive director of Livable Streets.

“This is an incredibly significant accomplishment,” said Stacy Thompson, executive director of the LivableStreets Alliance. “The kinds of things that people like me think about as no-brainer fixes — this is the kind of bill that will save lives, and that’s not hyperbolic. It both will protect the most vulnerable people on our roadways and also will give the state better data.”

Representatives of the Memorial Drive Alliance, a collective of Cambridge and Boston environmentalists, cyclists, pedestrians, runners, city officials and members of prominent local community organizations, are committed to an improved Memorial Drive Parkway and share the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s mission to protect and enhance state natural resources for all to enjoy.

Vehicle design standards focus on the safety of people inside the car, not outside, she said. “We have built cars that make it impossible to see humans,” Thompson said. “I think a punitive response wouldn’t fix this.”

Among the 26 groups signing the Memorial Drive Alliance’s comments were Green Cambridge, the Livable Streets Alliance, A Better Cambridge, the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association, Cambridge Residents Alliance and Mothers Out Front.

"Michelle Wu is probably definitively the most progressive transportation mayor in the country," said Stacy Thompson, executive director of the LivableStreets Alliance.

“Unfortunately, these numbers aren’t surprising, and they’re tragic,” said Stacy Thompson, executive director of LivableStreets, a nonprofit based in Metro Boston. “Pedestrian fatalities and serious crashes that have an enormous mental, physical and economic toll are truly a public health crisis.”

This pilot is the result of a strong partnership with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the City of Cambridge, the City of Boston, and various advocacy groups, including Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), LivableStreets Alliance, TransitMatters, MassBike, Cambridge Bike Safety, and WalkBoston, according to MassDOT.

“This is the sixth year the Vision Zero Coalition has called on the Legislature to pass life-saving legislation on World Day of Remembrance. Every moment of delay adds to the devastating statewide toll of preventable traffic crashes,” said Emily Stein of Safe Roads Alliance, one of a handful of safe-streets organizations that make up the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition.

Wu has remained fairly consistent on her transportation policy stances over the last five years, while Essaibi George’s stances have evolved, according to a review of 2017, 2019, and 2021 candidate questionnaires from the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition, which advocates for policies that reduce traffic-related deaths.