One of the most popular events at our annual Designing Cities Conference, the Meet the Cities poster session gives every NACTO member agency the opportunity to share their projects, successes, and works-in-progress with their peers. Mesa prepared the content below for its 2025 Meet the Cities poster.
Mesa, Arizona’s third-largest city, has experienced a 97% rise in roadway fatalities since 2014. To address this, the City secured a $750,000 Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, aiming to reduce serious and fatal crashes by 30% by 2030.
The plan, finalized in April 2025, outlines safety strategies and fosters a community-wide safety culture. The CSAP used public input and data-driven analysis to evaluate the most important contributing factors in fatal and serious crashes.
Based on the study’s methodology, the HRN in Mesa is defined by 37 miles of Mesa’s roadways and accounts for 39% of crashes resulting in a fatality or serious injury. 95% of this network falls within federally defined disadvantaged communities.
One of the CSAP’s infrastructure-related strategies is to separate pedestrians and bikes from vehicles, removing severe conflicts and creating dedicated space that minimizes exposure to vehicles.
Mesa’s Extension Road project takes advantage of upcoming pavement maintenance efforts on a 2.5-mile section of a five-lane collector road. Extension Road is a popular bike commuter route connecting residential neighborhoods to multiple activity centers, such as a public park, schools, and light rail. The design is a mix of buffered on-street bike lanes with sections separated by delineators and green paint at conflict points. Part of this project will repurpose one northbound travel lane.
Check out all of the posters from Meet the Cities 2025.
