Safe Streets Research & Consulting, LLC
Safe Streets Research & Consulting, LLC (Safe Streets) is a certified DBE specializing in rigorous crash and survey data analysis to provide insights into pedestrian, bicycle, e-scooter, and motorist safety, behavior, and mobility. Safe Streets is owned and operated by Rebecca Sanders, PhD, RSP-2B and Jessica Schoner, PhD, and builds on their combined nearly 30 years of academic and consulting experience, including studies of perceived and empirical safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and e-scooter users; bicycle and pedestrian network analysis & exposure estimation; trends in e-scooter use; data science methods and software tools for safety and transportation analyses; and roadway user design preferences.
Safe Streets’ approach is informed both by public health and transportation theory and years of practice leading research, Vision Zero, and data science projects across sectors. Drs. Sanders and Schoner have authored dozens of academic journal articles and professional reports, including for multiple NCHRP projects to improve pedestrian, bicyclist, and motorist safety, and they have helped cities such as Seattle, Denver, Portland, Oakland, Minneapolis—St. Paul, New Orleans, and Boston to understand and address bicycle, pedestrian, and motorist safety through Vision Zero and systemic safety efforts. Additionally, Dr. Schoner recently led the development of the Safer Streets Priority Finder, a free and open-source web tool that brings advanced safety analyses to transportation planners and engineers nationwide.
Safe Streets’ current work includes research on pedestrian safety in darkness, pedestrian hotspots, and race-related trends in pedestrian fatalities; county-wide systemic safety analysis; several NCHRP and BTSCRP projects conducting research and developing guidance regarding roadway reallocation and pedestrian, e-scooter, and bicyclist safety; and systemic safety guidance for the FHWA.
Safe Streets offers services in the following areas:
Crash analysis, Vision Zero, & Safe System Approach
Safety & planning policy, strategy, and insights
Research reports & literature reviews
Research project design
National guidance & best practices
Data science & quantitative analysis
Surveys, interviews, & focus groups
Task & project management
Safe Streets seeks to bring an equity lens to all projects, in collaboration with community partners and building on the principles of Dignity-Infused Community Engagement, in which Dr. Sanders is trained.
We look forward to helping you improve safety and quality of life in your community.
Meet the Safe Streets Team
Rebecca Sanders, PhD, RSP-2B
Dr. Rebecca Sanders (she/her) is the Founder and Principal Investigator of Safe Streets Research & Consulting, LLC. She brings 17 years of academic and consulting experience analyzing and addressing pedestrian, bicyclist, e-scooter, and motorist safety, behavior, and mobility through crash analysis, survey research, and design. Her current research focuses on pedestrian safety in darkness and pedestrian fatality hotspots; safe practices for e-scooter use; national guidance for bicycle facility design; systemic safety analysis and guidance related to pedestrians and bicyclists; and principles and guidance for roadway reallocation. As the Chair of the TRB Bicycle Committee and an appointed member of Portland’s Pedestrian Advisory Committee, she works with people across the country and locally to improve safety, mobility, and transportation equity for people walking, rolling, bicycling, and scooting. Dr. Sanders has held research positions at multiple Tier 1 universities and built Research and Vision Zero practices at industry partners. During her career, she has helped cities and counties across the country understand and address multi-modal safety through Vision Zero and systemic safety efforts and led and co-led multiple national design guidance efforts.
Dr. Sanders graduated magna cum laude as a University Scholar (foci: Spanish/French/Music/Religion) from Baylor University and received her Master and PhD in City & Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. Having grown up in Texas and lived abroad, she has experienced the extremes in transportation access and mobility. Rebecca is passionate about increasing access to safe, equitable, sustainable transportation options. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, children, and dog. In her spare time, she enjoys singing and playing guitar, gardening, jogging, and spending quality time with family and friends.
Jessica Schoner, PhD
Dr. Jessica Schoner (she/they) is a Co-Owner and the Data Science Lead of Safe Streets Research & Consulting, LLC. She brings 13 years of academic and consulting experience as a transportation researcher, planner, and data scientist, including translating original research and cutting-edge studies into actionable outcomes and interactive data-driven tools for her clients. Dr. Schoner uses GIS and statistics to help federal, state, regional, and local agencies answer critical questions about the effects of infrastructure and the built environment on travel behavior, physical activity, health, and safety outcomes. She is well-versed in qualitative and quantitative research methods, including literature review, survey design, survey data analysis and modeling, geospatial data analysis and modeling, Frequentist and Bayesian statistical modeling, and machine learning techniques. Dr. Schoner’s latest work has focused on research and applications of systemic safety analysis for vulnerable road users. She is particularly proud to have led the development of the Safer Streets Priority Finder, a free and open-source tool for practitioners to proactively screen their network for pedestrian and bicycle crash risk.
Dr. Schoner earned her PhD and MS in Civil Engineering and Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota. She graduated from the University of California San Diego with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Mathematics. She is a member of Transportation Research Board’s Bicycle Committee. She lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband, children, and cat. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, knitting, hiking, watching trains, and answering her six year old’s persistent questions about why that car just turned right on a red light.
Brian Almdale, MUPP
Brian Almdale (he/him) is a Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Planner and Analyst III at Safe Streets Research and Consulting, LLC. He brings nine years of consulting experience using GIS, data science, and multimodal traffic safety analysis to help clients at the local, regional, and statewide levels address traffic safety issues through Vision Zero Action Plans, systemic safety analyses, and active transportation master plans. Through his work as a consultant and personal research, Brian has developed a strong understanding of the complexities, nuances, and shortcomings related to crash and contextual data to better understand crashes, transportation systems, and populations who are disproportionately affected by the design of the transportation system. Brian strongly believes in the power of information sharing and consistently seeks opportunities to learn from others and share his experiences to better serve communities and work towards a transportation system in which people do not have to risk death or serious injury to meet their mobility needs.
Brian received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Urban Planning and Policy with a concentration in Urban Transportation Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Urban Planning and Policy. Brian currently lives in Seattle, WA, with his wife and daughter. Brian consistently experiences the impacts of our transportation system by traveling primarily by bicycle, walking, and public transit. Outside of work, he spends much of his time riding around Seattle with his daughter on their family cargo bike, developing and printing with 35mm film in his home darkroom, learning about data science and systemic safety, and enjoying being out in the Puget Sound and Cascade Mountains.
Emira Rista, PhD
Dr. Emira Rista (she/her) is a Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Researcher and Analyst II at Safe Streets Research and Consulting. She brings seven years of research experience in traffic safety data collection, processing, and analysis to help clients at the local, state, and federal levels address traffic safety issues related to roadway sign and marking performance evaluation as well as traffic operation and safety in and around work zones. Through her research experience, Emira has gained intimate knowledge of crash, traffic, and roadway network data, their strengths and limitations, and their applicability and use in solving various transportation problems. In addition to her research endeavors, Emira has provided support for federal programs aiming to raise awareness about and improve the safety of first responders, as well as assisting state, regional, and local agencies in the utilization of crowdsourced data to solve various traffic operations and maintenance issues.
Dr. Rista received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI) and her Doctorate in Civil Engineering, with a concentration in Transportation Safety, from Iowa State University (Ames, IA). She currently resides in Plymouth, MI, with her husband and son. Emira was an avid walker and public transit user during her student years when she would commute from Southfield and Royal Oak to Detroit. Aside from work, Emira loves baking, gardening, watching sports, walks around the neighborhood, and spending time with her family.
