Dangerous by Design

Where roads are dangerous by design

By ·

Every day, in communities across the country, people are killed while walking to school, to work or to the store. Many of these lives could be saved by building and operating streets that work for everyone who uses them.

On Tuesday, May 20, Smart Growth America’s National Complete Streets Coalition will release Dangerous by Design 2014, a report that brings attention to the national epidemic of pedestrian fatalities and the decades-long neglect of pedestrian safety.

The 2014 edition will rank the country’s major metropolitan areas using a Pedestrian Danger Index, which assesses the likelihood that a person walking will be hit by a driver of a vehicle, and by looking at overall percentage of traffic deaths suffered by people walking. In addition, it will make specific recommendations at the national and state levels to improve safety, including Complete Streets practices that ensure streets are built and operated for the safety of all road users.

Complete Streets

Show Us Your Dangerous Streets

By ·

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.

Complete Streets

Transportation for America releases Dangerous by Design 2011

By ·

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.

Uncategorized
  • …