Key Takeaways
- Policy choices that continue giving priority to right-of-way for cars make streets more unsafe.
- Most safety tools and design solutions already exist, but political will and inequitable deployment often act as barriers.
Summary
- Pedestrian deaths, especially in the USA, are uneven:
- Deaths concentrate on a few wide, high-speed arterial roads and underinvested neighbourhoods.
- Older adults, racialized groups, low-income residents, and new-immigrant suburban residents are at higher risk.
- Tools for safety:
- Community knowledge, walk audits, and local stakeholder input reveal hazards that agencies often miss.
- Refuge islands, bump outs, daylighting traffic, street light improvements, median buffers, and signal changes are pre-existing tools that have proven successful.
- Vehicle design and movement (SUVs and trucks) make road safety worse.
- Pedestrian deaths, especially in the USA, are uneven:
How can Cities apply these learnings?
- Map corridors that account for most deaths and serious injuries and deploy targeted safety measures.
- Run neighborhood walk audits with residents to inform policy decisions.
- Formalize no-parking zones near intersections and use tactical pilots to test solutions.
- Rework street access and parking policies to discourage high-hood, heavy vehicles in areas where pedestrian exposure is high.
Useful Resources
- Families for Safe Streets (FSS) USA. https://www.familiesforsafestreets.org/history
- Friends and Families for Safe Streets (FFSS) Canada. https://www.ffsafestreets.ca/about
- World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims website. https://worlddayofremembrance.org/#top
Ideas for further reading
- Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America – Book by Angie Schmitt.
