The U.S. Is Not for Pedestrians

The United States is a land of cars, where it is not easy to be a walker. Transportation for America, an organization fighting for safe roads, warns that over the last decade the situation in many cities has become even worse.

Pedestrians in America are becoming more and more discriminated against. New roads are getting wider and sidewalks smaller. This happens at a time when Americans are advised to exercise more and conserve energy, according to the organization, which prepared a report on the issue.

“These deaths [on the road] typically are labeled ‘accidents,’ and attributed to error on the part of motorist or pedestrian. In fact, however, the majority of these deaths share a common thread: They occurred along ‘arterial’ roadways that were dangerous by design, streets engineered for speeding traffic with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on bicycles,” write the authors of the report.

As a result, the number of people that die in road accidents as drivers or passengers is quickly declining (by 27 percent during 2000-09). Among pedestrians, the decline is much slower (by 14 percent), and in many large cities, the number of pedestrian fatalities has not decreased at all or has actually increased.

The organization has calculated the so-called Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI), which counts not only the number of fatalities but also how many people are actually on foot. At the head of the blacklist are the metropolitan areas of Florida (the first four places are taken by Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami), and metropolitan areas of other southern and southwestern states, which have been developing rapidly over the last few years, and in which the population density is relatively low.

“Hispanic and black residents — people who are the least likely to own cars — suffered the highest pedestrian fatality rates. (…) Bus riders are particularly vulnerable, mostly because bus stops are often between intersections on long, wide roads and are far from stoplights. People race across to get to the other side, rather than walk (in steamy weather or after a long day’s work) a quarter- or half-mile to a stoplight,” says Lizette Alvarez in a recently published New York Times article on this issue.

The situation is better on the East Coast and in the north. Generally, however, in this respect the U.S. is far behind other wealthy countries. According to the Dangerous by Design report, “Canada and Australia, both developed countries with a similar infrastructure to the U.S., have pedestrian fatality rates of 1.1 and 0.9 per 100,000, respectively, compared to 1.6 for the U.S.”

Accidents are frequent, although there are few pedestrians. On average, no more than 2 percent of Americans go to work on foot, with the highest percentage (6.1 percent) in New York.

According to organizations fighting for pedestrians’ rights, the courts’ mentality is also an issue. The New York Times describes a case from Atlanta, where Raquel Nelson and her 4-year-old son crossed a road without a crosswalk. They got off a bus and the nearest crosswalk was over a kilometer away. The boy ran across the road and was killed by a car. Ms. Nelson was found guilty of his death and sentenced to community service and a year of probation, while the driver who fled the scene served six months in jail.

Several organizations which rose to the woman’s defense found her punishment to be cruel because — as they argued — she had no other way of crossing the road.

A lack of sidewalks, crosswalks and other facilities for pedestrians especially affects older people and children. Because they are unable to walk or ride a bicycle to school, they have to be driven everywhere. This also contributes to obesity, which is currently at 17 percent among Americans ages two through 19.

Researchers from the University of Chicago have shown that there is an explicit link between heart disease in residents of a given area and their local street networks. According to the study, “A person might decide to jog or bike several times a week, but if the neighborhood outside their door is not conducive to physical activity, it can be easier said than done.”

New York is a good example of how minor changes can sometimes improve the situation. City authorities observed that older people constitute a remarkably large number of pedestrian fatalities, and therefore, in several locations, they lengthened the green light for pedestrians, created pedestrian refuge islands and improved signposting so that it would be more visible. As a result, the number of pedestrian fatalities decreased by 9 percent up to even 60 (depending on the neighborhood).

Today, New York, Cleveland and Boston are the three safest cities for pedestrians in the United States.