How should a community respond when someone is killed in the street—an investigation, memorial, moment of silence—and then, business as usual? Around the world, traffic violence claims over a million lives each year. Yet even in the wake of tragedy, many cities struggle to offer a meaningful or visible public response.

This roundtable focuses on responses that move beyond the emotional and political void left in the aftermath of roadway deaths, toward immediate infrastructural change. Drawing from a context of persistent institutional inaction—where streets remain physically unchanged—we examine how official responses are often minimal, with responsibility quietly deflected. In the absence of a structural reaction, loss becomes private, danger is normalized, and political discourse stalls.

We present an update to a protocol known as Emergency Streets, a framework designed to support rapid, visible action following fatal crashes. Within 72 hours, temporary traffic-calming tools can be deployed to reduce speeds and visibly mark the site of harm. While modest in scope, such interventions challenge the assumption that existing street designs are neutral and create a space for communities to directly engage with public infrastructure in the aftermath of violence.

This roundtable invites participants to consider:
– Why aren’t traffic fatalities treated as public emergencies?
– What forms of response can disrupt the normalization of risk?
– How might temporary interventions—such as those in Emergency Streets—support long-term policy change?

By bringing ethnographic insight into conversation with pragmatic tools, this session explores how cycling communities and allied constituents can shift from passive tolerance of roadway death to active engagement. We aim to foster the boldness needed to cultivate a more responsive, human-centered street culture—one that enables elected officials and transportation professionals to engage in more honest conversations about the failures of past approaches.