Elaina Richards: East side Tucson violence happens in cars

This year in Tucson, there have been about 100 deaths on our roads due to vehicle crashes. Meanwhile, as citizens and elected officials increasingly call for more action to reduce crime, the 4,280 vehicle collisions on our roads in 2025 alone are not included in the data that claims 16,000 crime incidents in 2025 so far.

If we included traffic violence in our crime data, it would be the leading risk of traumatic injury. The intersections of Broadway and Wilmot (Wards 2 and 6), and Golf Links and Swan (Wards 4 and 6) would be considered the most dangerous parts of our city, with 51 and 41 crashes respectively in 2024. Wards 2 and 4 typically have the city’s lowest levels of crime, but only if you ignore traffic violence.

However, when I look to see what Councilmember Cunningham (Ward 2) and Councilmember Lee (Ward 4) say about violence and crime in their wards, I see a focus on making people pay to access public transit again, and on controlling the public spaces dedicated to waiting for transit. I do not see a strong focus on traffic calming, or enforcement at dangerous intersections. They have made it abundantly clear that they believe requiring fares on public transit would have public safety and revenue-generating benefits that outweigh the severe drop in ridership that would result.

This position also shows a lack of care for Tucsonans like me, who grew up on the east side and choose to take the bus not because it is our only option, or the fastest, but because we understand that it is the safest vehicle to be in on our roads, and one of the best ways to reduce traffic congestion. The American Public Transit Association shows that commuters reduce their crash risk by more than 90 percent when they take transit instead of driving. When, instead of encouraging investment in transit for safer travel, we actively discourage it by wringing our hands about the perception of safety, we ultimately make the public less safe on our streets.

Councilmembers must pay more attention to the actual catalyst of most interpersonal violence: traffic. Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for adults under 45. While drug overdose is the leading form of unintentional injury, traffic accidents are the top form of injury that most often occurs between two people.

Current discourse frames traffic collisions as isolated problems of individual choices, while framing individual drug use as the main safety threat to others in public. This is a fundamentally reversed understanding of root causes. Viewing traffic accidents as inevitable leads us to neglect the engineering approaches that could prevent injury and end traffic deaths on our roads. Adoption of policies to reduce traffic deaths to zero— known as Vision Zero—have led to a 22% reduction in deaths in Austin at 22 intersections. Vision Zero increases commitments in cities across the nation to acknowledge traffic deaths are preventable.

A world where it is the norm to go 10-15 mph above the speed limit while pedestrians and bus drivers and riders fend for themselves amid speeding traffic and purposefully “hostile architecture” — like the lack of seating to rest at busy transit stops — is not safe. Hostile architecture does not prevent hostile behavior; it only prevents dignified behavior.

I grew up on the east side of Tucson, taking the school bus until I could drive, the same year they discontinued the closest SunTran route to my house. The scarcity of access to public transit, and the normalization of teens driving themselves to school led to us having a “Worst Driver” superlative in our high school yearbook. We can change this, but we need to take it seriously.

If public transportation projects that support health and mobility for all require a lot of money or time, the answer is not to stunt them. We need city leaders who envision a safer environment for all and to work with us to build it. Many of us will be here for not just the next 20, but possibly the next 50 years, if we’re not taken out by a motor vehicle first.