ITE Webinar: Safer Land-Use Series: When Safety Is Built In: Moving Safety Upstream Through Land Use and Planning

When: August 25, 2026 | 2:00 -- 3:00 PM ET

This webinar is led by the ITE Safety Council.

Webinar Description:

Transportation safety is often addressed through roadway design, traffic operations, and post-crash analysis. While these tools remain essential, many of the factors that influence transportation risk are established much earlier—through land use decisions, network planning, and development patterns that shape how, where, and why people travel. By the time a roadway project reaches design, key decisions affecting travel demand, roadway function, vehicle speeds, and multimodal access have often already been made.

This webinar explores how transportation professionals can move safety "upstream" by recognizing land use and planning decisions as transportation safety decisions. Through examples of comprehensive planning, network connectivity, functional classification, development sequencing, and multimodal planning, presenters will illustrate how early policy and planning choices influence long-term safety outcomes. Rather than treating safety as a constraint to address during project delivery, participants will examine opportunities to embed safety objectives into the planning processes that establish the framework for future transportation systems.

The session will also highlight the evolving role of transportation professionals in interdisciplinary planning efforts. Transportation engineers, planners, and public agency staff routinely participate in comprehensive planning, development review, transportation impact analysis, and corridor planning—processes that offer meaningful opportunities to shape safer communities before infrastructure is designed or constructed. By integrating safety considerations into these upstream decisions, agencies can better align land use and transportation investments with Safe System principles while reducing the need for costly retrofits later.

Participants will leave with a broader understanding of the relationship between land use and transportation safety, practical examples of how agencies are incorporating safety earlier in the planning process, and strategies for strengthening collaboration across planning, engineering, and development disciplines. The webinar will reinforce the idea that building safer transportation systems begins long before the first roadway plans are drawn.
 

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize how land use decisions, network planning, and development patterns influence transportation safety outcomes before roadway design begins.
• Describe the relationship between upstream planning decisions and long-term transportation safety within the Safe System approach.
• Identify opportunities to integrate safety considerations into comprehensive planning, development review, transportation impact analysis, and corridor planning.
• Explain how planning decisions related to network connectivity, functional classification, development sequencing, and multimodal access affect travel behavior and safety.
  Examine examples of agencies embedding transportation safety objectives into land use and planning processes.
• Apply strategies for strengthening collaboration among planning, engineering, and development professionals to support safer transportation systems.
  Recall key principles for incorporating transportation safety earlier in the planning process to reduce the need for costly retrofits and improve long-term outcomes.

Moderator:  Luana Broshears, PE, RSP | Associate | Fehr & Peers | Washington, D.C., USA

Presenters:

• Dr. Sogand Karbalaieali | Practice Lead - Multimodal Operations & Technology Planning| Cambridge Systematics | Bethesda, MD, USA
• Dave Petrucci | Senior Project Manager – Transportation and Safety | Michael Baker International| Pennington, NJ, USA
• Steven Florko | Principal | Eveline Transport Planning Inc.| Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada