The Renton Police Department is using grant funds for Target Zero on traffic enforcement in the city.
An interagency agreement with Washington Traffic Safety Commission will grant the police department up to $4,000 to reimburse costs related to the Law Enforcement Liaison Program between Dec. 8, 2025, and Sept. 30, 2026.
This will increase law enforcement participation in traffic safety enforcement and serve as a resource for the region’s Target Zero manager. The Target Zero manager coordinates multi-jurisdictional emphasis patrols to ensure law enforcement efforts are consistent across city and county lines.
“This grant application and acceptance are a routine part of our Traffic Division’s work,” Renton Police Department spokesperson Meeghan Black said. “Accepting these funds is a critical step in our commitment to Target Zero, Washington State’s strategic goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030.”
These grants are structured as reimbursement for specific, data-driven initiatives. This year, the department will use the funds for overtime for patrolling officers targeting high-risk behaviors such as speeding and distracted driving, directing resources to specific roadway segments shown to have serious collisions and purchasing equipment such as radar/lidar units and thermal paper for citations.
Proactive enforcement hopes to deter “risky behaviors” such as DUI or aggressive driving through a visible police presence. Using crash and citation data to identify dangerous areas, Black said agencies ensure resources are deployed where they can prevent the most tragic outcomes.
“Under the Safe System Approach, enforcement acts as a critical layer of protection,” Black said. “When other systems (like road design) fail, enforcement of speed and impairment laws reduces the severity of resulting crashes.”
In June 2025, the city of Renton took the first steps to form its Renton Public Safety Action Plan to update the city’s local road safety plan from 2022 and initiate Renton’s first “Target Zero” plan. Through the plan, Renton will explore the possibility of a target date and address roadway-related deaths and injuries in the city.
“Statistics in our local road safety plan have shown us that we do experience occurrences of fatalities and injuries in our road network, particularly among pedestrians in marked crosswalks, as well as speed-related injuries and fatalities,” Renton Transportation Planning Manager Ellen Talbo said previously.
Talbo said the city will be “far more engaging” with the community in forming the plan. A task force would include public works, police department and communications staff from the city and officials from fire authorities, EMT and emergency response.
They want to speak with the people who are taking transit or walking because they have “experiences and feedback you can’t get from just looking at tabular crash data.”
At the time, Talbo listed better speed enforcement, improvements to the physical infrastructure or developments of better safety educational programs for the community as possible solutions.
