pedestrian Archives - Transportation For America

U.S. Surgeon General issuing a rare call-to-action to make walking safer & more convenient

The Surgeon General will issue a new call-to-action next Wednesday that focuses on encouraging cities and towns to design and build their roads and public places to make walking easier, safer and more pleasant.

From an email this morning:

The Call to Action will highlight the significant health burden that exists in the U.S. today due to physical inactivity – contributing to more than 10 percent of the preventable mortality in America today. More specifically, it will make recommendations to a number of key sectors about critical actions they can take to improve community walkability and increase walking throughout the U.S..

It’s an incredibly noteworthy moment to see the Surgeon General identify this issue as a major public health problem. Issuing an official call is a significant event for the Surgeon General, and rare — only six others have been issued within the last ten years.

According to the Surgeon General’s office, only half of American adults get enough physical activity to reduce the risk of chronic disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. To address this grim statistic, the Surgeon General and HHS will release a set of recommendations on how to encourage walking and better shape our communities to encourage people to get out and walk or bike more to get around each day.

Communities around the country are seeing the benefits of better walking and biking infrastructure. Nashville’s metropolitan organization recently began considering health criteria as they selects transportation projects. Washington State was the first state to adopt a Vision Zero plan to reduce pedestrian deaths to zero. Making their vision a reality includes not just educating drivers about pedestrian and bike safety but also re-designing streets and roads to slow traffic and give folks walking and biking safe and attractive facilities to use.

We can’t just ask folks to get out and walk more — we need to give them safe and convenient opportunities to do so.

The Surgeon General and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will be launching this report and call-to-action next Wednesday, September 9, at Kaiser Permanente’s offices in Washington, DC., and we’ll be there to cover it.

If you’d like to watch next week, the event will be webcast on the Surgeon General’s website. On September 9th, go to http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/calls/walking-and-walkable-communities/event-webcast.html

Photos of dangerous streets have been streaming in

After putting out the call far and wide for pictures of streets designed for speeding traffic at the expense of safe travel by people on foot or bike, we’ve been getting some great — and by great, we mean frightening and terrible — photos of inconvenient, poorly-planned, dangerous and downright hostile conditions for pedestrians.

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!

Raquel Nelson’s story may be rare, but the dangerous conditions are not — show us

Many of you were shocked by the story of Raquel Nelson, the single mom in Atlanta charged with vehicular homicide when her son was killed while crossing an unsafe street with her. While shocking, head-scratching stories like hers are thankfully rare, it’s emblematic of the road design in many places that we live, and we want to make sure that Congress gets that picture loud and clear.

We want to show them that roads like Austell Road by Raquel Nelson’s apartment — 4 lane speedways with few considerations for pedestrians — are far too common.

So send us your photos of dangerous, unsafe and poorly planned streets out there across America.

We want to see what streets look like out there for people trying to walk. We want to see the missing crosswalks, the 1/2 mile treks to the nearest crosswalk along a 50 mph highway, and dangerous roads designed for speeding traffic rather than safe walking. More than 47,000 people were killed while walking from 2000-2009, and a large majority of them occurred on roads fitting these descriptions.

A few details about how to send in photos or video:

Email: You can email photos to us at photos@t4america.org. When you send them, please let us know if we can upload these to our Flickr account (with your credit information in caption like this one.) Anywhere we use your photos, we’ll always give you credit.
Flickr: Add photos to the T4 America Flickr group, and tag them with “dangerous by design” so we’re sure to see them. If you have photos but don’t want to add them to the group, you can just add the tag “dangerous by design”. We always prefer photos licensed with Creative Commons, so we can use these photos in meetings with Congress or on the blog with credit given to the source.
Video: You can upload videos directly to our Facebook page, but Youtube or other video sharing sites are fine. Send us a link. If you send in videos directly to the email address, they need to be under 10 mb.
If you’ve got another way to show us your photos other than these, drop us a line at photos@t4america.org

Over the next few weeks we’ll highlight some of the most heinous conditions and worst design here on the blog.

Poorly designed streets — often built or designed with federal dollars — endanger pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike. Too many people are walking in these places where they’re likely to become the next statistic because of streets that are dangerous by design. Show Congress what this looks like and help us paint a compelling picture of why we need to invest in safer streets in the next transportation bill.

Your photos will help us in our meetings with Congress and other transportation officials as we press for policies and funding in a transportation bill that will help make walking and biking safer on streets around the country.

Here are some examples of the dangerous and inconvenient conditions pedestrians face in our cities and communities every day.

The New York Times photo by Chip Litherland

New York Times photo by Chip Litherland

Sidewalk Infill_ 82nd 022 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Credit to April Bertelsen
Pedestrian Coordinator
Portland Bureau of Transportation

image003 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

(Please credit photos to Dr. Scott Crawford. Posted here with his permission)

Walking & Roads Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Credit to Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America

Walking in the ditch Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

Photograph by Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America.

Coastal Alabama advocates make Complete Streets in Mobile a reality

With the echo of the latest pedestrian fatality figures still ringing, a city in the deep South became the latest, albeit unlikely, place to adopt a Complete Streets policy. To paraphrase the song: if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

When people think of “infrastructure,” images of roadways and grids tend to come to mind. But there’s another kind of infrastructure — support from key people and players on the ground — that is equally crucial to how we build our communities.

Wendy Allen and Charlene Lee (pictured at right) of Smart Coast, an advocacy group aimed at strengthening and revitalizing the Alabama coastline, understand the importance of that support structure. Without their coalition-building skills, it’s unlikely the Mobile City Council would have passed a Complete Streets policy this year.

Smart Coast was founded a decade ago to encourage smart and sustainable development in the face of increased population along the coast. In 2009, the Mobile region’s poor ranking on pedestrian fatalities prompted the group to host an event to raise the profile of safe access for all road users.

“We were working in an area that did not have a groundswell or clamor saying ‘my God, this is unacceptable that my area is unsafe,’” said Lee, the programs director for Smart Coast. “We were trying to build that groundswell.”

Allen and Lee cited the recommendations in Transportation for America’s Dangerous by Design report, and T4 Communications Director David Goldberg attended and spoke at the event. Mobile had 138 pedestrian fatalities from 2000 to 2009, according to our most recent report, and the state of Alabama was the fifth most dangerous state overall for people walking.

In January 2010, Smart Coast presented its Complete Streets recommendations to the Mobile City Council for the first time, a meeting Allen described as “a big lovefest.” Prior to the presentation, Allen and Lee had solidified support from Councilmember Gina Gregory, who has a professional background in media and public relations. They also built relationships with business groups, city engineers and other key stakeholders.

The outreach resulted in a “foundational infrastructure with enough people in enough places that cared,” according to Allen, Smart Coast’s Executive Director.

“We had a perfect storm of things happens,” added Lee.

The measure languished for over a year in the council’s Public Safety Committee, but the backing of the Mobile Medical Society, coupled with increased activity among local bicyclists and the full backing of Leadership Mobile, a civic group, helped to finally advance the complete streets proposal to the full Council this year. Growing awareness of the public health implications of unsafe streets was particularly resonant in a state that consistently ranks among the highest in adult obesity.

As the Press-Register reported this week, the measure passed in Mobile is non-binding and lacks an enforcement mechanism, but Lee emphasized that it was important to “get the policy done first” so that advocates would have something to build upon.

Smart Coast is already at work on implementation, with plans to identify three potential Mobile streets that could accommodate a “road diet” that includes bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks. Mobile citizens would be invited to weigh in on where they would prefer to see these changes happen.

“If we can get an early success on the ground, we think that will parlay into this incredible engagement that’s already occurring,” Lee said.

Mobile is the sixth city in coastal Alabama to adopt a complete streets policy, following the lead of Fairhope, Daphne Chickasaw, Mount Vernon and Orange Beach.

Photo courtesy of Smart Coast.

Newspapers across the country call for increased pedestrian safety following Dangerous by Design rankings

Jackson, Mississippi Credit: Dr. Scott Crawford.

This week’s release of Dangerous by Design has prompted several newspapers to editorialize in favor of tough pedestrian safety measures that address the urgency of the 47,000 killed and 688,000 injured on unsafe streets between 2000 and 2009.

The report generated ample coverage in Florida, home to the nation’s four most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians: Orlando, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. Statewide, 5,163 Floridians were killed between 2000 and 2009, at a cost of $22.2 billion.

The Orlando Sentinel weighed in Wednesday, warning: “If you like to walk in Florida, the bad news just keeps coming,” continuing: “What’s attractive about living in a place where it’s dangerous to even walk?”

The Sentinel also turned its attention to Florida’s elected officials who are in a position to make a difference:

Can we look to our current leadership to correct this dubious distinction? Well, U.S Rep. John Mica wants to lift the requirement that 10 percent of federal gas tax proceeds be spent on things like sidewalks and bike lanes. And Gov. Rick Scott’s new Secretary of Transportation, Ananth Prasad, recently testified before Congress that, when money’s tight, it might not make sense to build — you guessed it — sidewalks and bike trails.

(Ed. note: The Sentinel figure is too high — in fact, about 1.5 percent of total federal transportation dollars go toward making walking and biking safer.)

The Gainesville Sun reached a similar conclusion in “A death defying act: Walking across Florida’s mean streets,” saying: “Facilitating the fast movement of automobiles is a far higher priority than saving lives.”

In West Virginia, several newspapers covered the report and the Charleston Daily Mail ran an editorial titled “Protecting pedestrians should be a priority.” They wrote:

Improving safety for pedestrians is essential if the state is going to promote walking as part of any program for healthier living. Given this state’s abysmal rankings in most health categories, the issue seems worthy of government attention.

West Virginia is the home of Nick Rahall, the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as well as key Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who this week announced her intention to fight for pedestrian safety in the next transportation bill. The state ranked 24th out of 50 in overall pedestrian danger index.

Up north, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted Pennsylvania’s relatively favorable ranking overall while imploring Mayor Michael Nutter to continue efforts toward promoting a walkable city. Philadelphia has already expanded bike lanes and instituted a Complete Streets policy.

And in Hawaii, which had the highest fatality rate among senior pedestrians, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser similarly urged renewed focus on the needs of all road users.

Failure to adopt a policy that helps seniors and all citizens use transportation without undue hazard would be a mistake, more costly in the long run and a contradiction in a state that prides itself on its year-round enjoyment of the outdoors.

You can view more state rankings on our report map here.

UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press, hailing from the cradle of the American auto industry, echoed similar themes this weekend, editorializing: “Designing walkable streets and public places is important to building healthy, livable cities that attract talented employees, innovative businesses and creative entrepreneurs.”

Also, several lawmakers responded in the wake of the report.

Lawmakers move to address pedestrian safety in the wake of Dangerous by Design

Tuesday’s release of Dangerous by Design outlining the 47,700 deaths and 688,000 injuries to people while walking on unsafe streets has renewed Congress’ focus on pedestrian safety in the next transportation bill. But what substantial steps the House and Senate will take to promote safer streets and improve conditions for walking remains very much in play.

As we point out in the report, federal dollars and/or design guidelines have contributed to the dangerous conditions on the roads where two-thirds of these people have died, so the federal government can’t now throw up their hands, pass the buck and declare the ongoing carnage “a local problem.”

Representative Shelley Moore Capito (right), a West Virginia Republican and member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told the Charleston Daily Mail that she will “certainly remain a strong voice for making roads safer to pedestrians” while crafting the transportation bill. More than 200 people were killed while walking in West Virginia from 2000 to 2009, according to the report, at a cost of $1.02 billion, and the Charleston metro area had 56 of those fatalities. The entire state ranked 24th out of 50 states in overall danger to pedestrians.

Over in the Senate, the Environmental and Public Works Committee has been drafting their part of the bill and looking for points of agreement among the top four committee members from both parties. Many T4 partners from across the country have been communicating with EPW offices for the last several weeks urging the Senate to retain dedicated funding for making walking and biking safer, a key recommendation of Dangerous by Design 2011.

Sen. Boxer released a joint statement yesterday with her fellow Committee leaders from both parties on the broad principles they’ve agreed upon for the next transportation bill. (Read T4’s official response here.)

• Funds programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure;
• Eliminates earmarks;
• Consolidates numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful programs;
• Consolidates numerous programs into a more focused freight program that will improve the movement of goods;
• Creates a new section called America Fast Forward, which strengthens the TIFIA program to stretch federal dollars further than they have been stretched before; and
• Expedites project delivery without sacrificing the environment or the rights of people to be heard

Boxer told reporters she supports federal efforts and funding for walking and biking. “Certainly any mode of transportation – roads that support alternatives such as bike paths, walkways – will be included and get good attention,” she said, according to Streetsblog Capitol Hill, though negotiations continue on all aspects of the bill not included in these core principles above.

California had 6,957 pedestrian deaths from 2000 to 2009, including 2,533 in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and 938 in the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area, which made the list of the top ten most dangerous metros at #5. California ranked 16th out of all 50 states, according to the report’s Pedestrian Danger Index for states.

Blaming the pedestrian won’t solve the problem

Walking in the ditch Originally uploaded by Transportation for America to Flickr.

If this woman got hit by car, it’s probably her fault, right? Photograph by Stephen Lee Davis/Transportation for America.

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.”

Dozens of bicyclists ride to USDOT Friday to tell Secretary LaHood “thanks”

Transportation for America was proud to co-author and circulate a letter thanking Secretary Ray LaHood for The U.S. Department of Transportation’s recent policy statement elevating walking and biking in national policy, “giving bicycles and pedestrians a seat at the transportation table,” as the Secretary put it on his blog this morning.

Last Friday, several of us at T4 took that appreciation a step further — or, several pedals further — by cycling with a handful of national partners, our local partners from the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, and about 50 local bicyclists to the DOT Headquarters across town to thank the Secretary in person.

The ride from Freedom Plaza at 14th and Pennsylvania in Northwest DC to the DOT building near the Southwest waterfront district took about 25 minutes. Most of the ride was taken on bike lanes, a number of which are relatively new, including new separated lanes right in the center of America’s main street, Pennsylvania Avenue.

Watch and share this video from Friday’s ride that we put together:

LaHood was on hand to receive our large bicycling posse, a group which collectively represented more than 200 organizations from every state in America. Lilly Shoup spoke on behalf of T4 America and was joined by Barbara McCann from the National Complete Streets Coalition, Margo Pedroso from the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and Randy Neufield of America Bikes, who joked to LaHood: “it’s not surprising that people who ride bikes like your new policy.”

The Washington Area Bicyclists Association, one of signatories on the letter and a local T4 partner, presented LaHood with a thank you poster signed by hundreds of DC-area bicyclists at Bike to Work Day.

Making our streets safer and more accessible for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages and abilities is serious business to LaHood, a former Republican Congressman from Peoria, Illinois who cannot be accused of losing touch with mainstream Americans. LaHood goes home often and can be seen on weekends biking with his wife or grandchildren on converted rails-to-trails in both Illinois and Washington.

“You really do great honor to the people at DOT,” LaHood said, intentionally turning his back on the cameras for a few minutes to speak directly to the bicyclists gathered behind him. “What you have done is begin to change some attitudes on Capitol Hill.”

LaHood and to-be-named DC Bikeshare bike Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

The Secretary is right about that. Ohio Congressman Steve LaTourette, for instance, went from questioning whether LaHood’s policy statement on bicycle and pedestrian options was the product of drug use at USDOT to backpedaling with a pro-cycling message on his website actively endorsing the idea. LaTourette heard from his constituents, who liked the bike paths he bad been bringing back to the district over the years, and he listened.

Secretary LaHood was clear about that point: this change in policy is a reflection of what Americans are demanding, a theme which he returned to time and time again in his remarks.

The Secretary also knows, as do many of our partners, that we won’t make lasting progress on increasing walking and biking options without a comprehensive, forward-thinking reauthorization of our surface transportation law. In this crucial six-year bill, we can put real resources into projects that get kids walking to school safely, families biking together on the weekends, short trips being made by foot or bike, and everyone able to live a more active and healthy life.

LaHood was very gracious, saying this morning that our visit was a “great way to start the summer,” and we couldn’t agree more.

U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood issued a exciting new directive yesterday that officially shows DOT’s support for improving safety for walking and bicycling and the importance of integrating them into transportation systems — treating them as equal modes of transportation.

Last fall we released a report chronicling the tragedy of 76,000 preventable pedestrian deaths over the last 15 years. “Dangerous by Design” took a hard look at our often unsafe streets that are engineered for speeding traffic with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on a bicycle.

DSC_0376 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

When that report was released, we asked supporters like you across the country to sign a petition to Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood asking him to support Complete Streets at DOT, and more than 4,100 of you responded. We took that petition directly to Secretary Lahood back in November of 2008, and afterward, he told T4 America, “the right of way “belongs to pedestrians and bicyclists as well. The DOT Safety Council is going to look at this report and work with advocacy groups to ensure our streets are as safe as possible.”

Yesterday, Secretary Lahood and DOT responded by turning his words to us from November into official DOT policy with the release of a DOT “policy statement.”

The DOT policy is to incorporate safe and convenient walking and bicycling facilities into transportation projects. Every transportation agency, including DOT, has the responsibility to improve conditions and opportunities for walking and bicycling and to integrate walking and bicycling into their transportation systems. Because of the numerous individual and community benefits that walking and bicycling provide — including health, safety, environmental, transportation, and quality of life — transportation agencies are encouraged to go beyond minimum standards to provide safe and convenient facilities for these modes.

Or as he described it more simply on his Fastlane blog yesterday, “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”

We applaud the Secretary’s work on this issue and are especially thankful for the thousands of you who wrote a letter to Congress or signed our petition to Sec. Lahood urging him to use all the powers at DOT’s disposal to make safe, complete streets the norm all across America. Your voices were heard, and policy has changed.

“This is an issue that has been ignored far too long, even as thousands have died or been injured unnecessarily just by doing something as simple as trying to cross the street,” said T4 America director James Corless.

“We thank Secretary Lahood for his leadership at DOT and for elevating this urgent issue to the level of prominence that it deserves. Americans deserve have a safe route for walking to the store, walking their kids to school, or walking to the bus stop at the end of their block to get to work. Taking these simple steps to consider the needs of everyone who uses a street — bicyclist, pedestrian, or wheelchair user — is exactly what we were hoping for when we took our message into Secretary Lahood’s office last November. It can help us stay healthier by giving us one more option for travel, and Secretary Lahood is spot-on when he says that it’s a key part of making livable neighborhoods.”

This certainly doesn’t mean that the issue is over. As Barbara McCann with the National Complete Streets Coalition reminds us, there is still no official federal requirement for complete streets on projects the feds spend money on. And only a fraction of states, cities, and towns have rules on the books requiring them to ensure the safety of all users when they build or retrofit a street or road.

DOT is saying all the right things in this statement, but they need the legislative authority and money from Congress to line up with their excellent intentions.

So we’ve taken a first step. A big, important leap into a safer world for everyone who uses our streets. But there is more left to do.

Dangerous by Design

What would the national reaction be if a jumbo jet full of passengers went down with regularity every 31 days or so? How loud would the calls be for a fundamental change in airline safety? It’s easy to imagine the shock and outrage if such a thing happened. Yet that is essentially what happens every year with preventable pedestrian fatalities on our nation’s streets and roads.

Every year, nearly 5,000 Americans die preventable deaths on roads that fail to provide safe conditions for pedestrians. This decade alone, more than 43,000 Americans – including 3,906 children under 16 – have been killed while walking or crossing a street in our communities. With more than 76,000 Americans dying in the last 15 years, it’s the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month, yet it receives nothing like that kind of attention.

A new report from Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Death (and Making Great Neighborhoods), ranks metropolitan areas based on the relative danger of walking.

Download the full report, see the comprehensive rankings and view all of the companion tables of data online right here: https://t4america.org/resources/dangerousbydesign. After you’ve taken a look, ask U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to make pedestrian safety a priority for the administration. Pedestrian deaths are preventable, and we demand safer streets!

Many of these preventable deaths are occurring along roadways that are dangerous by design, streets engineered for speeding cars with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on a bicycle.

YikesPedestrian Originally uploaded by Transportation for America

Look carefully in the turning lane above the center of the photograph. There’s a pedestrian trying to cross this 7-lane urban arterial road. See any crosswalks anywhere on the road? Photo courtesy of Dan Burden.

Over the last several decades, many of our cities and communities have seen the same shift of daily business from walkable, downtown Main Streets to wide, fast-moving state highways. These “arterial” roads are the new main streets in most communities, drawing shopping centers, drive-throughs, apartment complexes and office parks. Unlike the old walkable main streets, however, the pressure to move as many cars through these areas as quickly as possible has led transportation departments to squeeze in as many lanes as they can, while disregarding sidewalks, crosswalks and crossing signals, on-street parking, and even street trees in order to remove impediments to speeding traffic.

As a result, more than half of fatal vehicle crashes occurred on these wide, high capacity and high-speed thoroughfares. Though dangerous, these arterials are all but unavoidable because they are the trunk lines carrying most local traffic and supporting nearly all the commercial activity essential to daily life.

Before the top 10 most dangerous city rankings, here are just a few facts you might like to know:

Inadequate facilities. Of the 9,168 pedestrian fatalities in 2007-08 for which the location of the collision is known, more than 40 percent were killed where no crosswalk was available.

Spending disparity. Though pedestrian fatalities make up 11.8 percent of all traffic-related fatalities, states have allocated less than 1.5 percent of total authorized transportation funds to projects aimed at improving safety for pedestrians (for funds spent under current transportation bill.) No state spends more than 5 percent of federal transportation funds on safety features or programs for pedestrians or cyclists, despite a 30 percent increase in total federal transportation dollars beginning in 2005.

Complete streets save lives. Providing sidewalks, crosswalks and designing for lower traffic speeds saves lives. Only one in 10 pedestrians deaths occurred within crosswalks, while six in 10 occurred on arterial-type roads where speeds were 40 mph or higher.

The danger is not shared equally. Older adults, disabled and low-income Americans are being killed at disproportionate rates. African-Americans, who walk for 50 percent more trips than whites, and Hispanic residents, who walk 40 percent more, are subjected to the least safe conditions and die disproportionately.

Aging in place, yet unable to leave the house on foot. An AARP poll of adults 50 years and older found that 40 percent reported inadequate sidewalks in their neighborhoods and nearly half of respondents reported that they could not safely cross the main roads close to their home.

Rank	Metropolitan Area	2007-08 Pedestrian Danger Index
1	Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla.	221.5
2	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.	205.5
3	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla.	181.2
4	Jacksonville, Fla.	157.4
5	Memphis, Tenn.-Miss.-Ark.	137.7
6	Raleigh-Cary, N.C.	128.6
7	Louisville/Jefferson County, Ky.-Ind.	114.8
8	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas	112.4
8	Birmingham-Hoover, Ala.	110.0
10	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, Ga.	108.3

	See the full rankings and download the report