Posts Tagged "walking"
After your next trip, bring back a fresh perspective on transportation
Visiting communities other than our own can remind us to envision more for transportation in our own communities. This is especially important now, with so much infrastructure funding starting to flow that could actually make these visions reality.
Safety over speed week: The U.S. builds death traps, not streets
We took a look at one busy road outside of Orlando where a dozen people have been struck and killed by drivers in recent years. The mix of high-speed traffic with people walking, biking, and taking transit is a dangerous combination; in the event of a crash, people die. The Complete Streets Act of 2019 would go a long way to give local government more resources to redesign these dangerous streets so everyone can travel along them safely.
Many of the most dangerous states for people walking are planning for more people to die
13 Americans per day were struck and killed while walking by drivers from 2008-2017, according to a report released today by our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition. Dangerous by Design 2019 also shows how some of the most dangerous states are, astonishingly, committed to making the problem even worse.
Changing the transportation paradigm, one project selection at a time.
Thanks to support from the Kresge Foundation, Transportation for America helped several regions around the country take tangible steps toward aligning their spending with their policy goals using performance measures. We asked them about it…here’s what they said.
On National Walking Day, too many Americans are still having to endure unsafe streets
While we missed recognizing National Walking Day last week while the Complete Streets conference was happening in Nashville, we wanted to come back this week and revisit a post from 2012 looking at what’s actually keeping more people from walking in many of our metro areas.
Coming soon: A new report on how metro areas are building more and better bicycling and walking projects
Metro areas of all sizes across the country are strategizing, developing, and implementing new ways to improve bicycling and walking in their regions. Over the last year, T4America worked with metro areas across the country to collect and document these stories, ideas, and strategies into a guidebook that we’re releasing on December 11.
Federal program that helps tackle health disparities threatened in ’18 budget
Congress is threatening to eliminate a small yet significant federal program housed within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that helps local communities take concrete steps to prevent someone’s zip code from being the most powerful determinant in their long-term health.
How are metro areas prioritizing health and building more biking and walking projects?
Though there’s booming demand all across the country to build more projects that can help residents get out and bike or walk — whether for exercise or just for getting around safely from A to B — it can be an uphill battle to do so. How are metro areas upending the conventional wisdom and building more projects that help improve their residents’ health?
Introducing “Dangerous by Design 2016”
Between 2005 and 2014, a total of 46,149 people were struck and killed by cars while walking. That averages out to about 13 people per day.
Help show just how dangerous our streets can be for people walking
This fall, our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition will release Dangerous by Design 2016, a report that will again rank the nation’s most dangerous places to walk using the Pedestrian Danger Index. This year’s report will dive deep into how income, race, and place play an outsized role in how likely people are to be killed while walking. And they’re looking for your help when it comes to illustrating just how bad it can be out there.
Webinar wrap: How MPOs are prioritizing public health to build prosperous regions
Last week, we had a discussion detailing how public health professionals are working with regional transportation planners to plan, fund, and support building more state of the art active transportation projects — accompanying the release of Measuring What We Value: Prioritizing Public Health to Build Prosperous Regions.
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.
Urban bike trails in cities like Indianapolis, Dallas and Atlanta are proving to have rich economic benefits to city neighborhoods
Affirming a trend seen in other cities, Indianapolis’s eight-mile Cultural Trail has been a boon to the neighborhoods adjacent to it — as well as the city as a whole — increasing property values of homes and businesses and giving residents and tourists an efficient, unbroken path to walk, bike and move around the city.
Healthy economies need healthy people — Nashville leads the way for other regions
What’s the connection between healthy residents and a healthy bottom line? Why should a local business community care about improving the health of the residents that live there? Representatives from five regions gathered last week in Nashville to learn how providing better transportation infrastructure and building more walkable communities can help improve residents’ health — and boost local economic prosperity and competitiveness.
Its National Walking Day, but too many people will have to walk unsafe streets
You may not have known it — its not the most publicized special day on the books — but today is National Walking Day. Some of you may have traded part or all of your drive or transit trip today for a walk to work. But for many, every day is walking day, and it happens on streets with dangerous or inconvenient conditions that no one should have to endure just to walk to school, their job, or the grocery store.
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 […]
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.
Protect, don’t prosecute, pedestrians — Raquel Nelson seeking a new trial
The story of Raquel Nelson, the Atlanta mother charged with vehicular homicide when her son was killed while crossing a street with her, continues to make waves in the local and national media. It’s been a galvanizing story, as people across the country were shocked to see a grieving mother convicted and facing jail time […]
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 […]
New report and map chronicles the visceral reality of 47,000 preventable pedestrian deaths
From 2000-2009, 47,000 people were killed while walking our nation’s streets, according to the 2011 edition of our pedestrian safety report. These fatalities occurred largely on streets designed for speeding traffic at the expense of people on foot. Dangerous by Design 2011 adds a visual element: Data from 2001-2009 can be viewed on an interactive map, showing details about the victim, the street type and even what the street looks like via Google Street View.
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