UPDATE below. More than 5,200 of you signed our petition to push for freedom for the Atlanta mother who was charged in her son’s death when he was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street in front of their apartment complex. Raquel Nelson is due back in court next week, but we wanted [...]

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to sign complete streets legislation is a step forward for pedestrian safety, though a Times report out of Orlando yesterday illustrates how much further we have to go. The status-quo for most people on foot or on bike around the country is woefully unsafe and insufficient, though perhaps nowhere more so than in Florida.

“I feel like her sentencing, it doesn’t just criminalize her, but people in like circumstances whose sole transportation is their feet” – Lisa Cupid, South Cobb resident who delivered 17 letters from Nelson’s supporters to the judge today. Updated 7/26 5:41 p.m.: Raquel Nelson told the AJC that she has opted for a new trial. [...]

This morning Raquel Nelson got to tell a little of her own story on national television, thanks to a Today show piece, embedded below. The Georgia mom faces sentencing tomorrow of up to 36 months in jail on charges of vehicular homicide in the death of her son, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver [...]

The House has not yet released the full text of a transportation bill proposal, but the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has released an outline of the principles that will be included in the bill. We posted a short analysis of the outline here. This is one in a series of posts looking into some of [...]

Updated 7/19: The charge has been corrected. Nelson was charged with vehicular homicide. Updated 7/21: More information added at bottom. This is an advocacy blog, but typically we’re rather measured in our tone. Sometimes, however, we see something so utterly outrageous, so emblematic of the failure of our current transportation system, that “measured” just won’t cut [...]

We mentioned this on Twitter when the issue came out back in July, but National Geographic had a nice one-page feature on Dangerous by Design, our study from 2009 ranking metro areas on their relative danger to those on foot and bike, focusing on Florida’s overall risk based on having 4 of the top 10 most dangerous metros. In the last 15 years, more than 76,000 Americans have been killed while crossing or walking along a street in their community, and it’s high time that more attention was paid to this preventable loss of life that we far too often ignore or simple believe to be inevitable.

Do yourself a favor and check out this short video from PBS’ Blueprint America series that aired in just the last few days. The overall package is about “disappearmarks” — earmarks totaling millions in the last federal transportation bill that have never been allocated or spent, according to the Sunlight Foundation. But this from Atlanta focuses much more specifically on how unsafe, incomplete streets and outdated transportation planning has resulted in a major road in Atlanta (and countless others) where pedestrians take their lives into their own hands each and every day, just to get to work, school, or the closest bus stop.