Designing Streets for Safety, Not Excuses w/ Josh Stewart | ASTA – January 14, 2026

Featured Guest

Josh Stewart (Littleton, CO)
Josh shared how personal loss became a catalyst for sustained, values-driven advocacy, and why waiting for “perfect projects” or long timelines often costs lives.

Key Themes from the Session

• Why education campaigns alone rarely reduce traffic deaths

• How liability fears discourage cities from “doing more than the code”

• The power of low-cost, quickly deployable street safety interventions

• Why street design, not speed limits or enforcement, shapes driver behavior

• Acting on crash data before the next fatality

Member Insights Highlighted

• Several members noted that engineers often feel constrained by liability concerns, leading them to design strictly to minimum code rather than site-specific safety needs.

• Participants emphasized how sidewalk misuse, excessive street widths, and school siting decisions force unsafe travel behaviors.

• Members shared creative ideas like lending speed guns through libraries and involving students in speed and behavior observation as awareness tools, while recognizing their limits without design change.

Links Shared During the Session (with One-Sentence Context)

• Bottom-Up Shorts Podcast with Josh Stewart
  https://littlethings.strongtowns.org/e/bottom-up-shorts-how-a-personal-loss-can-drive-public-change/
  A powerful conversation showing how personal tragedy can fuel meaningful public change.

• CPR News: The Stewart Family Story
  https://www.cpr.org/2024/10/17/liam-stewart-was-killed-on-his-bicycle-last-year-his-dad-is-still-fighting-to-make-littletons-streets-safer/
  A detailed account of Josh’s advocacy following the death of his son Liam.

• Beyond Blame Report
  https://actionlab.strongtowns.org/hc/en-us/article_attachments/32317896701076
  Explores crash analysis findings that shift focus from individual fault to systemic design failures.

• Crash Analysis Studio
  https://www.strongtowns.org/crashstudio
  A tool that helps communities understand crashes as predictable outcomes of street design.

• Free Crash Analysis Studio Course
  https://academy.strongtowns.org/p/starting-your-own-crash-analysis-studio
  A practical, step-by-step course for launching a local crash analysis effort.

• Why Street Design Slows Traffic
  https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slowing-traffic-is-street-design-not-speed-limits
  Explains why forgiving street design encourages speeding regardless of posted limits.

• Speed Traps Don’t Create Lasting Change
  https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/11/14/mdf2022-speed-traps-have-no-long-term-effect-on-speeding
  Shows why enforcement without design change fails over time.

• Large Trucks Need Better Street Design
  https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/9/9/large-trucks-need-better-street-design
  Examines how modern vehicle design amplifies safety risks on overbuilt streets.

• NACTO Speed Cushion Guide
  https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/vertical-speed-control-elements/speed-cushion/
  A reference for low-cost vertical traffic calming options.

• Report_Beyond_Blame_Safer_Streets.pdf5 MB