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Just in: Video shows federal agents, detaining a Tufts University PhD student, Rumeysa Ozturk, on Tuesday night. The student’s attorney said she was detained while on the way to break her Ramadan fast with friends.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —

As part of a several-year-long initiative to drastically reduce transportation fatalities and serious injuries, the city of Cambridge has announced it will reduce the speed limit to 20 mph in all squares, Wicked Local/Cambridge reported.

The new speed limit will go into effect March 1 in Kendall, Central, Inman, Harvard and Porter squares.

In December 2016, Cambridge lowered the speed limit on all city-owned streets to 25 mph. But traffic and public safety officials say the difference between 25 mph and 20 mph in heavily trafficked squares will save lives.

“We know that ... pedestrians and cyclists are much more likely to survive a crash with a motor vehicle when speeds are below 20 mph,” stated Joseph Barr, director of Traffic, Parking, and Transportation in a press release. “Cambridge’s squares are the heart of our city, and we want to make sure that we support their economic vitality by making them safe for everyone who lives, works, and plays in Cambridge.”

Plan to be released Feb. 8

The city has been working on a Vision Zero Action Plan for almost two years now and on Thursday, Feb. 8, the plan will be released during a public celebration at City Hall at 8:30 a.m.

Adopted by the City Council in 2016, Vision Zero is an initiative to reduce and ultimately eliminate transportation fatalities and serious injuries, while at the same time creating safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all those who travel in Cambridge. The action plan serves as a blueprint for how Cambridge will achieve Vision Zero.

“It’s possible to imagine, with the right design, education and enforcement of traffic regulations, to get to a point where we don’t have any fatalities, or they are very rare,” said Barr in a July 2016 interview with the Chronicle. “This is something we aspire to, and something over the course of time that is truly achievable.”

The Action Plan outlines specific short- and long-term goals such as: designing safer streets, ensuring equity for all road users by paying attention to vulnerable and underserved populations, engaging the public, creating new partnerships with community organizations and using data to direct efforts and measure progress.

Crashes down, say police

The city will identify the fundamental causes of traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities to come up with solutions to prevent those incidents, and to evaluate its successes and remaining challenges, according to a press release.

Preliminary 2017 crash data from the Cambridge Police Department shows:

3 percent reduction in crash calls for service - to the lowest level in nearly two decades.

4 percent reduction in crashes requiring police reports.

17 percent reduction in crashes involving bicyclists.

17 percent reduction in crashes resulting in ambulance transport of injured parties to a hospital - to the lowest since 2005, when comprehensive EMS disposition data were captured.