The next time someone refers to a sidewalk as a too-expensive “amenity,” think about Powell Calhoun and Donna Williams. They were fatally hit by a driver as they traveled along a frontage road in Jackson, Mississippi that had no sidewalks for him to push her wheelchair.
Photos of ‘incomplete’ streets — those built with speeding cars in mind and little thought to people traveling by any other mean — have been vital in explaining the necessity of Complete Streets policies across the country. Help us continue to tell the story of ‘incomplete’ streets by sharing your photos with our partners at Transportation for America.
Dangerous by Design 2011 spotlights the issue of pedestrian safety and the factors that make walking dangerous.
In the last decade, from 2000 through 2009, more than 47,700 pedestrians were killed in the United States – the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing roughly every month. On top of that, more than 688,000 pedestrians were injured during that time as well – a number equivalent to a pedestrian being struck by a car or truck every 7 minutes.
Despite the magnitude of these avoidable tragedies, little public attention and even less in public resources have been committed to reducing pedestrian deaths and injuries in the United States. On the contrary, transportation agencies typically prioritize speeding traffic over the safety of people on foot or other vulnerable road users.
Transportation for America’s Dangerous by Design 2011 examines this problem and America’s streets that are “dangerous by design” — engineered for speeding traffic with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on bicycles.
This year’s edition of the report is accompanied by an interactive map that tracks pedestrian fatalities from 2001 to 2009 across the country. Type an address and click on any point to see the available information about the victim, the date, the location, the street type and even what the road looks like via Google Street View.
Blueprint America takes a look at Buford Highway in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, where pedestrians risk injury – and even death – just trying to cross the street.
In this week’s news round-up, we celebrate the recent achievements that continue to fuel the complete streets movement – on Capitol Hill and in communities across the country.
The National Complete Streets Coalition participated in a meeting yesterday with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that centered on how Complete Streets can help create a safer environment for all road users.
This week in Complete Streets news, we cover some of the results of Monday’s Dangerous by Design release, including a meeting with Secretary LaHood, progress in Lee County, and more.
A new report ranking the nation’s most dangerous metropolitan areas for walking finds that ‘incomplete’ streets are a major culprit in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year.