Kalamazoo Reports Continued Decline in 2025 Traffic Crashes
Published on February 26, 2026
More than 1,700 crashes prevented over three-year period
The City of Kalamazoo reports that 2025 marked another year of sustained improvement in city-wide traffic safety, according to finalized crash data compiled from Michigan State Police records.
Total reported crashes in 2025 were 2,339, a decrease from 2,530 in 2024 and a 24.4 percent reduction compared to the 2014–2019 pre-pandemic average of 3,093 crashes per year. Over the past three years (2023–2025), Kalamazoo’s Safe Streets for All initiatives are estimated to have prevented approximately 1,715 crashes, compared to expected totals based on historical averages.
“The data show that this is not a one-year fluctuation,” said Dennis Randolph, Public Works Manager and Traffic Engineer for the City of Kalamazoo. “We are seeing a sustained downward trend in crashes and injuries. The consistency of the improvement tells us our safety investments are working.”
From 2024 to 2025 alone, total crashes declined by 191 crashes, or 7.5 percent, continuing the city’s steady downward trajectory.
Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan
The City of Kalamazoo has adopted the Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan to guide future transportation safety improvements in Kalamazoo. The Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan is Kalamazoo’s commitment to enhance a safe network for walking, biking, riding, and driving throughout
the city. The plan is a continuation of work that began in 2024 and continued through last year. It also unlocks additional federal funding for infrastructure improvements.
“Federal grant programs are emphasizing safety and projects that make our streets and roads safer,” said Randolph. “Our experience shows that the City of Kalamazoo knows how to make safety improvements and makes our projects attractive for grants.”
To achieve such significant and positive results, the City of Kalamazoo has implemented several traffic safety and calming measures across the city. These include road diets (changing four-lane streets to three lanes), lane elimination and narrowing, roundabouts, traffic circles, bike lanes and cycle tracks, enhanced pedestrian crossing lighting and signing, pedestrian refuge islands, dynamic signal timing, audible pedestrian crossing signals, signal backplates, changing YIELD signs to STOP signs, adding STOP signs to uncontrolled intersections, general traffic signing upgrades, and speed humps.
“Each of the safety and calming measures we’ve implemented brings its own specific safety benefit,” said Randolph. “By tailoring these devices to specific crash and street characteristics at locations around the city, we are able to maximize safety overall to our street system.”
During 2026, the City of Kalamazoo will continue to apply safety and calming measures across the city. Engineering staff will also conduct further analyses to understand the individual impact of each of the safety measures. The staff, for example, has already taken a preliminary look at the impact of the City’s speed hump program and has found that across the city and on street segments that have speed humps, the average speed of traffic has decreased by about 2.3 miles per hour, and traffic volumes have decreased by about 11 percent.
Randolph always touts safety as the City of Kalamazoo’s primary objective. “Our emphasis on the number of people we can prevent from death or getting seriously injured and needing medical attention is the real important point,” he said. “In the end, this will be our most important traffic metric.”