#Pedestrian safety

[thebreakfastgod]

America's Roads: Dangerous by Design

[jakegardiner]

Obsessed with Vision Zero Vancouver’s energy

[winterthebeau]

american auto industry be like

[threadatl]

This is an excellent article on a sad topic: pedestrian deaths are rising.

QUOTE:

"Nationwide, the suburbanization of poverty in the 21st century has meant that more lower-income Americans who rely on shift work or public transit have moved to communities built around the deadliest kinds of roads: those with multiple lanes and higher speed limits but few crosswalks or sidewalks. The rise in pedestrian fatalities has been most pronounced on these arterials, which can combine highway speeds with the cross traffic of more local roads."

In the suburbs of Atlanta (and other metros) and in the city, these wide arterial roads are deadly for walking. Meanwhile, the most walkable places in the city are increasingly unaffordable.

It's obvious that we need a massive shift on a huge scale when it comes to the walkability of our built environments, and in the equitability of access to pedestrian safety.

It will take many steps, big and small, in our policies and investments in order to get there. Some of those small steps will need to happen on your street, and in your neighborhood. Please support them and please speak up when others don't.

[atlantathecity]

I'm glad to see leading pedestrian intervals at some intersections, where the walk signal gives pedestrians a head start. But I wish they were everywhere. I get this experience too often, being in a crosswalk while a car zips through as a driver makes a turn.

[This experience was, in fact, my entry into the urbanism rabbit hole -- specifically, crossing Ponce to get groceries while pushing my son in a baby stroller and watching drivers zip inches past us.]

Related: am I getting grumpier or is driver behavior getting worse? A little of both probably. We spotted multiple drivers brazenly run red lights yesterday while we were walking around.

It's also possible that my expectations of street safety have risen to the point where bad behavior is more glaring now that it used to be. Which is not a bad thing. We should all have higher expectations of safe streets.

[ceilidhtransing]

I've been thinking about urbanism and about how some people (I'm particularly thinking folks like “the vocal minority of business owners that go absolutely apeshit any time there's a proposal to remove some space from cars in favour of a bike lane, a tram line, a pedestrianised area, etc”) don't seem to really consider anyone outside a car to be a person.

*a city plans to remove some parking spaces to make room for a protected bike lane*

“But how is anyone supposed to get here?!”

*looks at bustling street filled with pedestrians, cyclists, and people riding a tram*

Like, it genuinely doesn't seem to occur to some people that all of those people moving around outside of cars are people. That's how “anyone is supposed to get here”: by way of all of the non-car options, especially those that are actively made safer and easier by the removal or limiting of space for cars. And I don't know what's going on here - whether it's something like classism (only those wealthy enough to drive everywhere matter as people) or simply that car dependency is perhaps so entrenched and unquestioned for some folk that it genuinely doesn't occur to them that getting to a place without a car is (or at least should be) an entirely valid and possible thing to do. It's probably a bit of both. But my god does it drive me nuts when people respond to a new proposal that will dramatically increase the capacity and footfall of an urban space by shifting from emphasising cars to emphasising walking, cycling and public transport with “but how will anyone get here?!”

[atlurbanist]

Stop the press-release journalism & start talking about street safety

by Darin Givens | Oct. 9, 2024

I watched a video today where an Atlanta reporter (11 Alive) praised a new affordable housing development on MLK Drive for being close to Hamilton Holmes MARTA Station; but he made no mention of the *obviously* unpleasant walk residents have to take to the nearest crosswalk in order to get there.

It's press-release journalism. People are just repeating the PR materials that were pushed out by the city and the developer. Stop it.

Two things can be true, and they need to be talked about at the same time. Adding rentals for households earning 50-60% of the area median income is good. That's what this new development (at 2576 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) does with its 52 units. Yes, praise that.

But the pedestrian situation is bad. We should all be saying this in the same breath -- especially our news media and local leaders.

Combining affordability with safe walkability should be our target. We can't hit the target if our eyes are closed to the barriers.

Mayor Dickens and Council member Andrea Boone were at the media event for these new apartments this week. You can't help but wonder if they, or any of their staff, noticed the problems as they approached in their cars.

Did they see the people walking on this GDOT road -- part of Atlanta's documented High Injury Network -- with no space between their bodies and the cars?

[thelesbianthespianposts]

yeah cool bike you’ve got there yeah fuck cars yeah do you obey traffic rules?

do you know that you as a biker have to abide by the same rules cars do in order to keep pedestrians safe?

do you know that you have to stop at stop signs and red lights?

do you know that you have to go the same way as cars do on one way streets?

do you know that you can’t bike on the sidewalk?

do you know that you as a biker are no more a pedestrian than a car?

[forthepleasureofmylife]

Downtown Manhattan

Photo: Dieter Krehbiel

[allthecanadianpolitics]

More than 1.5 million views on a road safety video might be considered good, if they weren't accompanied by comments such as "delete this," "shame on you" and "this is brutal."

Richmond RCMP posted a public service announcement video Friday morning on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that received such a response. 

[...]

But advocates and many commenters on X argue the video unhelpfully focuses on pedestrian behaviour when drivers and road design ought to be the focus of safety efforts.

"Every year we get public safety campaigns that effectively victim blame. They put blame on vulnerable road users — outside cars," said Lucy Maloney with Vision Zero, a group which aims to stop traffic deaths.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[the-city-in-mind]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) just announced new rules to help rein in the runaway supersizing of trucks and SUVs, to improve pedestrian safety.

[chaptertwo-thepacnw]

suspense, lois weber |1913|

[threadatl]

Mapping project highlights disturbing rise in pedestrian deaths in Atlanta

In 2022, over 35,000 crashes occurred on Atlanta streets. 548 of these crashes involved people walking, biking, and rolling. 38 of these crashes resulted in the deaths of people walking.

Propel ATL has released a new story map, "38 Reasons Why," about Atlanta’s disturbing increase in pedestrian traffic deaths. These trends also highlight a glaring disparity: People walking in Black neighborhoods and in low-income communities are more likely to lose their lives to traffic violence.

See the story map:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/35c4bb6181a64cc7b820816973d2b5a6

[atlantathecity]

The police report tells us that a 34-year-old woman was struck by a vehicle while walking here, at Freedom Pkwy & N Highland Ave, on March 29 a 8:30pm. She later died in the hospital.

But there is much more to these tragic stories than the soulless police log: a life lost, friends and family left to grieve, and a vehicle driver who has to live with their own grief.

Slowing traffic is crucial for city streets with pedestrians. Through our urban design and policies, we have to get to a place where all drivers are travelling slow enough that they can brake to a stop before killing someone.

The result of failing to do so is a trail of tragedies that society has become perversely comfortable with.

Let's stop being comfortable with this violence and start being open to street designs and policies that slow cars down.