Putting Pedestrians First

Writing for the Seattle Times, Anna Zivarts outlines some suggestions from the Mobility Safety Advisory Group for making roads safer, particularly for people not behind the wheel.

The group argues that making roads safer begins with thinking about the safety of all users, not just those in cars. “First, the surest way to ensure people aren’t killed by vehicles is to reduce speed,” Zivarts writes. This may sound inconvenient for people who want streets to move vehicles as quickly as possible, but is a guaranteed way to reduce traffic deaths. “We need to challenge the unspoken consensus that our infrastructure must guarantee vehicle traffic flow at specific speeds and come up with improved metrics that value access and safety.”

Second, reducing traffic violence means making other modes more convenient and safe to use, taking cars off the road and providing more mobility options. When people have access to good public transit and safe infrastructure for biking and walking, they often choose to leave the car at home. For transit-dependent workers who don’t own cars, improving transit and ‘Complete Streets’ infrastructure can provide crucial links to jobs and opportunities.

The third key piece, according to the MSAG, is changing patterns of land use and improving housing affordability. “Most critically, we need to tackle land use and housing affordability. It’s much easier to reduce car speeds, reduce vehicle miles traveled, and increase the percentage of trips made by walking, rolling, riding and transit if we stop building communities centered on automobility.”