Here is a sampling of some of what we’ve received so far.

Bladensburg-22 Originally uploaded by wtrecat to Flickr.

MD 450 just west of junction with MD 202. Very busy road with no pedestrian crossing at this spot across from El Primo international market, 5403 Annapolis Rd.

Note that this photo from Maryland just outside D.C. is taken at a Metro bus stop. And there appears to be no safe crossing immediately nearby.

Incomplete Street Originally uploaded by Boenau to Flickr.

No sidewalks? No problem!

There’s no sidewalk at all along this road. And the overgrowth forces anyone trying to walk out into the roadway. If there is a crosswalk at the light up ahead, pedestrians have to cross at least 8 lanes of traffic and a median to make it across.

Incomplete Street Originally uploaded by Boenau to Flickr.

As if walking on the goat path isn’t bad enough, rainfall drains and collects on the grass, forcing pedestrians into the street.

Just because there aren’t any sidewalks doesn’t mean that people won’t or aren’t walking. It has to be terrifying to walk on this narrow strip of grass next to 3 straight lanes of high speed traffic. And once again, if there is a crosswalk 200-400 yards down behind this pedestrian, people on foot will have to cross at least 6 lanes of traffic and a median in one light cycle.

elkton_rd3 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Submitted photo by Frank Warnock of Bike Delaware. www.bikede.org/ (Please credit photographer, not T4 America.)

Smooth, graduated turning radii like this are especially dangerous to pedestrians. Turns are engineered like this so traffic can make a right turn while only having to barely slow their speed, making it extremely hazardous for people on foot to cross from the island back to the side of the road.

IMG_6603 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Bee Caves Rd/RM 2244 west of Walsh Tarlton Lane in Austin, Texas. Roadway under TxDOT jurisdiction. Submitted photo by Joan Hudson, P.E., of the Texas Transportation Institute. (Please credit photographer, not T4 America.)

The photos we got from this supporter in Texas were all taken on roads managed by the Texas DOT. Pedestrians here have to walk in a ditch with nowhere to escape to if a car veers slightly out of the lane.

Photos like these could be taken in almost any place in the country. These conditions are far too common and much too accepted by the people who plan and design our streets and roads. Two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities in the last 10 years occurred on roads much like these — high-speed arterials designed first and foremost for moving speeding traffic as fast as possible with little consideration for the needs or safety of people on foot or bike. Federal dollars and design guidelines have helped create these dangerous situations across the country, and the federal government shouldn’t be able to walk away and pin the problem on the states.

Simple policy changes and priorities for spending at the federal level can help save lives immediately.

We’re not finished collecting these photos — we want to see yours! When you send them in (click here for instructions), feel free to include location information as well and we’ll plot and share the location. And bonus points for photos that show people in them.

Thank you so much to the dozens of people who sent us photos or submitted them to our Flickr group. Keep it up!

- 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. No details yet on when or where, but her attorney has made it clear that she will fight the charges once again in a new trial.

Raquel Nelson had her moment in Cobb County court this morning. After an emotional defense from her attorney and tearful witness testimonies defending Nelson’s character and requesting leniency, Judge Katherine Tanksley sentenced her to 12 months probation and 40 hours of community service, suspended the fines, and according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, gave her a choice between accepting that sentence or having a new trial.

A few outlets, including the AJC and the Marietta Patch, are reporting that Nelson will continue to fight these charges and seek a new trial.

In case you haven’t been following, Raquel Nelson is an Atlanta mother who was convicted of vehicular homicide when a hit-and-run driver killed her youngest son while she was crossing a street with her three children from a bus stop to her apartment complex. Read our initial post here.

Almost 140,000 people signed a petition asking the judge for leniency (and for Cobb County to install a crosswalk) in the case. The judge mentioned that she had gotten letters and petitions from across the state and the country. And several letters the defense received were read on Nelson’s behalf.

We’re elated for Raquel Nelson and her family that she won’t receive any jail time or be taken away from her other two children, but continue to be astounded that she was convicted for vehicular manslaughter in the first place. We’ll have more information and a detailed post soon. Should she seek a new trial and keep fighting? Should she be pardoned and cleared of all charges instead?

Check #RaquelNelson for updates on twitter.

Despite the enormous pressure she must be feeling, she was poised and articulate. Listening to her, it was hard to imagine the horror that this past year has been for her, to lose a child and then be faced with such a heartless prosecution.

“You’re always going to relive the moment. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never been through something like this. But you can’t let it dictate what you do. When I’m at work I have to push it away. … My other two daughters are the only way I could have survived this situation, giving me a reason to push forward.”

We were a little disappointed that the Today piece did not give viewers a better picture of the conditions that Nelson and her children faced that day in April 2010. Ken Edelstein of Green Building Chronicle in Atlanta helps to fill that gap with this video he sent us a little while ago:

The response to our post on the Atlanta mother who was charged with vehicular homicide when her child was struck by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street has been, to put it mildly, staggering. At last count, David Goldberg’s post has more than 150 comments, and many of the referring posts on the same topic have been similarly busy, some reaching into the hundreds of comments. More than 35,000 people read our post in two days and spread the story like wildfire on twitter. (Share the story with the #RaquelNelson hashtag.)

Though the response has been enormous — positive and negative — perhaps it really shouldn’t be all that surprising.

Considering that a huge percentage of Americans live in places not all that different from Austell Road in western Cobb County — once sleepy places near a larger city that were suburbanized around the automobile through the last few decades — many people could immediately relate to the story in some way.

Some may have been in Raquel Nelson’s shoes before, using sporadic public transportation or having to walk on streets where pedestrians are treated as an afterthought at best or a nuisance at worst. Some may be drivers who’ve seen pedestrians crossing without crosswalks from a similar bus stop and looked on in horror, having never considered what life is like in America’s suburbs without a car.

The comments on our story ran the spectrum. From sharing our outrage at the miscarriage of justice, to belief that the mother was wrong yet shouldn’t be charged, to people who would’ve obviously made the right decision in hindsight (with little understanding of what Nelson’s life was like), to shockingly callous comments suggesting she got what she deserved.  (Oh, and a fair helping of just plain offensive, racist, nasty things. We had to edit, delete or otherwise moderate more comments on this one post than in 3 years of comments on the T4 America blog.)

Most people commenting on the story were entirely focused on the question of whether or not Raquel Nelson was at all to blame, ignoring the larger question we asked: Isn’t this a systemic failure of how we design, plan and build our towns and cities?

One commenter did pick up on this, also hinting at a deeper issue of justice and fairness:

“The comments do not address the underlying problem. It is not a matter of who is at fault in this specific incident as much as what is being done about the problem wherever it exists. This incident is proof that there is a problem with the way transportation is planned.  The funding to fix these problems is being voted down. The ones voting against the funds are likely fine with that as the people affected will mostly not vote for them. Win Win for them.”

The people who are most likely riding the bus, walking along highways without sidewalks or crossing midblock to avoid 20 extra minutes of walking to cross a street in West Cobb County are people with few other options. They’re the people who the elected leaders in a place like Cobb County, that’s largely white and prosperous, probably aren’t going to spend a whole lot of time catering to.

This issue really is one of fairness and equity.

Should we be treating the people who have to walk (to say nothing of the people who want or choose to) as second-class citizens, forcing them to walk 20 minutes out of their way just to safely cross a street near their house or the store? Should we be more concerned with all the people who use a road, rather than just the ones who can afford to use a car? Is moving traffic as fast as possible, no matter the consequences to people on foot or bike, the only important function of our streets and roads?

One thing is certain: there are stories far too similar to Raquel Nelson’s all over the country. People walking along or crossing streets that weren’t designed for them, in places where the planning hasn’t caught up to the function — demonstrated in this instance where bus stops are placed across from residences with no safe, convenient way to get between the two.

We simply must do better. As long as we continue building and designing streets like these below, we’ll continue to see people die unnecessarily.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Scott Crawford	Photo courtesy of April Bertelson, Portland Pedestrian Coordinator	Photo by Stephen Davis, T4 America

More than 47,700 pedestrians were killed in the U.S. between 2000 and 2009, and the majority of those deaths were preventable, according to a new report released today by Transportation for America. The report, “Dangerous by Design 2011: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths,” shows how roadway designs promoted by federal investment endanger people on foot.

Dangerous by Design also ranks America’s major metropolitan areas using a Pedestrian Danger Index that uses 10 years of data to assess how safe pedestrians are while walking. The top four – Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville, and Tampa – are all in Florida. Other dangerous cities in the top 10 include: San Bernardino, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Memphis, Tennessee; Phoenix, Arizona; Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, Texas.

The report presents data on pedestrian fatalities and injuries in every U.S. county. And for the first time, this year’s report includes an online, interactive map showing the locations where pedestrian fatalities have occurred.

More than 688,000 pedestrians were injured over the decade, a number equivalent to a pedestrian being struck by a car or truck every 7 minutes. The report finds that while only 1.5 percent of federal funds are allocated towards upgrading dangerous roads, 12 percent of all nationwide fatalities are pedestrians. Of these fatalities, nearly 4,000 were children 15 years and younger, making pedestrian injury the third leading cause of death by unintentional injury for that age group.

The majority of deaths occur on roadways that encourage speeding but do not provide the sidewalks, crosswalks, signals and other protections for people who are walking, the report finds. Most of these roads were built using federal transportation funds. The report comes as the federal transportation bill is being debated in Washington DC and calls to eliminate programs that can promote safer, more walkable streets have increased.

“Some in Congress have questioned the federal interest in keeping pedestrians safe, believing it to be a strictly local issue,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America. “But two-thirds of all pedestrian fatalities in the last 10 years occurred on federal-aid roadways.”

Dangerous by Design describes how communities across the country are beginning to reverse the legacy of 50 years of anti-pedestrian policies by retrofitting or building new roads as “complete streets” that are safer for walking and bicycling, as well as motorists.

“Dangerous by Design shines a spotlight on the dangers pedestrians – especially older Americans – face when they walk in unsafe crosswalks and along roads with little protection from fast-moving traffic,” said Nancy LeaMond, AARP Executive Vice President. “With a rapidly aging population, AARP is renewing its call on Congress to pass ‘Complete Streets’ legislation, which will help ensure that our streets and sidewalks are safe for all Americans regardless of age or ability.”

Hispanics suffered an average pedestrian death rate 62 percent higher than that for non-Hispanic whites. Similarly, the average pedestrian death rate for African-Americans was 73 percent higher than for non-Hispanic whites. In addition, older Americans are over twice as likely to be killed while walking as those under 65 years of age.

Dangerous by Design outlines a roadmap for the future by which Congress can tackle the problems created by poorly designed transportation systems and create safer, more efficient cities for drivers and pedestrians alike. Of particular emphasis is developing transportation systems that take into account pedestrians and bicyclists, instead of viewing them as impediments to traffic.

“Investing to make our roads safer for pedestrians is not a frill, but an urgent matter of life and death in too many of our communities,” said Corless. “Federal programs that caused the dangerous roads to be built now must be reformed to help communities make them safer.”

T4 recommendations for the next transportation bill to create safer streets include provisions to:

• Retain dedicated federal funding for pedestrians and bicyclists;
• Create complete networks of sidewalks, bicycle paths, and trails so that residents can travel safely throughout an area;
• Require federal, state, and local governments to set safety standards they must meet for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and motorists; and
• Hold states accountable for creating communities that are safe for walking.

To view the full report, please click here. (pdf)

We noted on Twitter this morning a story in the USA Today about pedestrian deaths increasing in 2010, halting a decline that had been going on for quite a few years. The USA Today story took the angle offered from the head of a state safety association (Governors Highway Safety Association) that pedestrians are at fault for the increase in deaths. The Washington Examiner, not to be outdone, took some comments from the head of the association to baselessly suggest that more pedestrians are being killed because of the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign to get more people active and walking to stem the obesity epidemic.

That’s right, it has nothing to do with things like 4 -and 6- and 8- lane arterials with no sidewalks and crosswalks a mile apart running through our communities. Or streets built without sidewalks. Or 55 mile per hour speed limits on roads where people need to walk. Or curved right turn lanes that allow cars to make turns at intersections at 30 mph. It has nothing to do with roads that are dangerous by design, leading to thousands of avoidable fatalities every year.

Automatically blaming the pedestrian is shameful and the GHSA should take their time to study the issue more carefully. Pedestrians are dying by the thousands, and it’s not because they’re using an ipod while crossing the street or trying to get more exercise at the First Lady’s urging. It’s because our basic choices about road design have left far too many without a safe place to walk, putting too many pedestrians in harm’s way.

We’d laugh at the GHSA’s silly suggestion, but we’re talking about a crisis that’s resulted in 76,000 deaths in the last 15 years. It’s no laughing matter.

UPDATE: The GHSA told the Atlantic that they were misquoted by the Examiner. They don’t refute a possible link, but they do say they support Michelle Obama’s program, adding that if more people are walking, they need to be aware.

Harsha said her primary concern for pedestrians was the increased use of electronic devices like iPods that can block out sound and make walkers unaware of oncoming traffic. The organization has received anecdotal evidence of pedestrian injuries caused by people walking into traffic.

It’s good they clarified, but it still sounds like they don’t quite grasp the main cause of death for pedestrians: Roads that are dangerous by design and unsafe for pedestrians. “Distracted” pedestrians aren’t the real culprit here.

TBD, a local DC news site, shared the pitch that they got from the GHSA, which is likely where the “Let’s Move” connection originated:

“Why the increase? We don’t really know but speculate that it could be a couple factors. One is the possible increase in distracted pedestrians and distracted drivers. We’ve been focusing on the drivers, but perhaps we need to focus some attention on distracted walkers! Additionally, Mrs. Obama and others have been bringing attention to ‘get moving’ programs, so perhaps pedestrian exposure has increased.”

Click the image to download a PDF of the one-page article, and while you’re at it you could just go ahead and subscribe to one of our country’s best magazines for only 15 bucks.

A couple of years ago, my colleague Stephen Lee Davis profiled Dr. Scott Crawford, a wheelchair user and resident of Jackson, Mississippi who has long fought for accessible buses with wheelchair lifts, curb ramps and better sidewalks.

As Dr. Crawford’s story reminds us, there is still a lot of work to do in making our communities accessible for all users. But he’s had a powerful legal tool in his fight to make Jackson’s streets and transit services equitable and accessible for all users: The Americans with Disabilities Act, which turned 20 years old just this week. President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA in 1990, and his son, George W. Bush, put his signature on the 2008 amendments to the Act, which broadened protections and addressed provisions that had been weakened by the Courts.

The ADA defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.”

The ADA made reasonable accommodation in workplaces and businesses for people with disabilities the law of the land, ensuring that a disability wouldn’t automatically marginalize anyone. Before it was signed, Americans who were blind, deaf, wheelchair-bound or with chronic injuries or limitations had no legal recourse against inaccessibility. Public and private sector institutions could ignore them as a silent minority — and they often did.

Reasonable accommodation does not mean that every corner of every building can be reached by everyone. It does mean that an employer or government agency must make a concerted effort — through ramps, elevators, doors wide enough for a wheelchair and other resources — to make the workplace accessible for people with disabilities.

Meeting ADA requirements has certainly been a challenge for many communities, especially those with older buildings and smaller economies. Jackson, Mississippi has had the same bus fleet for decades with broken chair lifts and has struggled to find the resources to upgrade. Many transportation departments are more interested in expanding existing roads and broadening access between towns and cities, forgetting what happens within them.

Difficulties aside, many of us are now realizing that the focus on “reasonable accommodations” has actually improved the quality of life for everyone. Older Americans, whether technically disabled or not, face similar challenges with access, have benefited from lifts on public buses. Mothers pushing strollers appreciate new sidewalk ramps.

Beyond mere ADA compliance, everyone is better off with a focus on “Complete Streets,” ensuring that roads accommodate all users regardless of how they get around. Two Mississippi cities, Tupelo and Hernando, recently adopted complete streets policies, and the Michigan State Senate is poised to do the same. Complete streets fit nicely into the universal design approach, which emphasizes the benefits to everyone rather than perpetuating “us” and “them” delineations. The ADA won’t be enough to make our streets truly safe and complete, as Jeff Peel of the League of American Bicyclists pointed out (h/t Streetsblog.net). “…don’t forget, the ADA [doesn't] require sidewalks — it says that if they are present, they must be made accessible,” he says.

As we celebrate the ADA, it is worth reminding ourselves not to take progress for granted. Progress happens because we pursue the right policies —and the people force our elected officials to listen up. That’s a point worth remembering for everyone who envisions an America with greater transportation options for all.

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 story from Atlanta focuses much more specifically on how unsafe, incomplete streets that don’t adequately meet the needs of all users in Atlanta results in pedestrians that have little choice but to take their lives into their own hands each and every day, just to get to work, school, or the closest bus stop.

They used the numbers from Dangerous by Design, our report on pedestrian safety nationally, to help give some broader national context to the situation in Atlanta.

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

A healthier transportation system for America’s kids requires change in federal policy. But change will remain out of our grasp absent a sense of urgency from the everyday people on the ground.

The need for a meeting point between policymakers in Washington and citizens in their neighborhoods was evident in today’s roundtable on childhood obesity, titled “Keeping Kids Moving,” sponsored by Transportation for America, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, The Convergence Partnership and PolicyLink.

We’re facing an epidemic of childhood obesity and poor health, and as a few people pointed out, this could very well be a generation of children who live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents if we don’t act now to change things.

The shape and structure of streets, sidewalks and the ability to safely use them has an enormous impact on whether children become overweight or obese. Kids get more physical activity and lead healthier lives when they can bike and walk to school, play in local parks and reach recreational opportunities with ease. Among American children between the ages of 10 and 17, 32 percent are overweight or obese, and many are at risk for more serious conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Obesity rates are disproportionately high among low-income and minority children.

In search of a solution, many routes invariably lead to transportation policy.

During the panel, several federal officials stressed the need for partnerships that cross departments and jurisdictions, with Roy Kienitz, undersecretary for policy at the Department of Transportation quipping, “transportation is too important to be left to transportation professionals.” Kienitz also emphasized the need for Americans to speak up and utilize the democratic process, noting that “the distance between the top [at DOT] and that sidewalk on your street is vast.”

Chip Johnson, mayor of Hernando, Mississippi, knows just how much of a difference one repair can make. As part of a broader push to repair his town’s streets, Johnson oversaw the pouring of concrete for a new sidewalk right outside his office window. On the old, cracked sidewalk, Johnson used to see a handful of pedestrians every morning, but he saw dozens more walking by once the improvements were completed.

“People want to exercise,” said Johnson, a Republican first elected mayor in 2005, adding that it’s up to officials like him to provide them the chance to do it.

keepkidsmoving2 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

While people like Undersecretary Kienitz, Special Assistant to the President Martha Coven and others are moving the levers where they can in Washington, local officials like Johnson are stepping up and refusing to wait, behavior encouraged by the federal officials who were present.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean didn’t wait for Washington. He made safe and accessible streets for all users a top priority and hired a director of healthy living initiatives — Adetonkunbo Omishakin, also a panel participant — to help make it happen in Nashville. Child wellness advocate Julia Lopez, herself a teenager, didn’t wait either. Along with being an instigator of change on the ground around her home of southern California, she has traveled the country to bring a youth perspective to the obesity challenge, calling on elected officials to step up and help make healthy transportation the norm, not the exception.

It’s clear that these advocates on the ground and policymakers at the top can meet in the middle to make real change, but it will take continued pressure on Congress from both ends to get the job done.