Category: pedestrian safety

Safer sidewalks ahead

Starting next week, the City of Charlotte launches a publicity campaign to get residents to keep sidewalks clear. They’ll start with a campaign about garbage and recycling carts, yard waste and other bulky items.

This is much-needed, and some might say long overdue. A tragic accident last May killed a Myers Park High School student riding a bikee to school along a Sharon Lane sidewalk which was next to the curb. He encountered a rollout garbage bin blocking the sidewalk, and in trying to avoid it clipped the bin and fell into the street. He was hit by a car and killed.

In my walks around the city I note this is a problem in many places. The city built many back-of-curb sidewalks well into the 1990s, to save money. Where to put the rollout garbage and recycling bins? If you put them in your driveway you can’t get out of your own driveway. Sometimes there’s room to put them in the yard next to the sidewalk. Sometimes there isn’t, especially if the lot slopes steeply up or down.

Yard waste is another problem: One Sunday morning not too long ago I was walking down Wendover Road and
someone had pile massive amounts of tree branches along the whole property frontage, completely blocking the sidewalk next to a steep slope. Nowhere to walk but in the street. I was trying (helpfully, I thought) to move some of the brush up onto the slope and the resident in the home came out and yelled at me. I confess, I yelled back, something about what “right-of-way” means and that the sidewalk was one, and that I had the “right” to go that way. She just yelled back and I gave up and walked in the busy, 4-lane street. Good thing that I was not in a wheelchair trying to get to a bus stop and that it was not rush hour.

Below is from the weekly memo to the Charlotte City Council, from the city manager. I’m glad to see they’ll tackle the problem of overgrown shrubbery later. I’ve considered going out armed with hedge clippers, to hack my way through some places. The memo:
“Solid Waste Services, in collaboration with Corporate Communications & Marketing, CDOT [Charlotte Department of Transportation] and Neighborhood & Business Services, will launch the first phase of a public campaign to increase community awareness of the need to keep sidewalks clear of obstructions.
“The first phase of the campaign, which begins on January 28, will focus on sidewalk obstructions associated with solid waste collections – garbage/recycling carts, yard waste and bulky items – as well as other items such as parked vehicles that impede sidewalk traffic. Educational efforts will aim to increase public awareness of the proper placement of collection items and offer alternatives for residents with limited options. Code Enforcement officers will be monitoring problem areas and will be providing educational assistance via door hangers.
“Campaign components will include radio ads (WLKO, WNKS, WLNK, WPEG, WOSF, WOLS and WKQC), online ads (Yahoo), Solid Waste Services truck decals, a utility bill insert in March, social media, Gov Channel billboards, segments in City Source, community meetings, door hangers and community newsletters. A website, sidewalksafety.charlottenc.gov will launch on January 28 as a resource for additional information on keeping sidewalks clear.
“The second phase of the campaign, which addresses additional obstructions such as overgrown shrubs, is set to launch this summer. Staff will update Council when this phase of the campaign begins.”

Pedestrians get better press

Pedestrians – and their safety – got national attention this week. And in the process, a redesigned Charlotte intersection got some national attention, too.

Tuesday, a national transportation advocacy group, Transportation for America (T4 America) released its report, “Dangerous by Design 2011,” looking at what it called an epidemic of preventable pedestrian deaths. From 2000 to 2009, it said, 47,700 pedestrians were killed in this country – the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing roughly every month. More than 688,000 were injured. Nearly 12 percent of total traffic deaths are pedestrians, but, the report says, state departments of transportation have pretty  much ignored pedestrian safety if you look at how budgets are allocated. Only 1.5 percent of available federal money goes to projects to retrofit dangerous roads and streets or create safer alternatives.

The report uses a pedestrian danger index based on a variety of factors and ranks the U.S. metro areas. The most dangerous, in order: Orlando, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Miami-Fort Lauderdale (all in Florida), Riverside-San Bernardino Calif., Las Vegas, Memphis, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas-Forth Worth. All are Sun Belt cities, and all but Memphis saw major growth booms in the last half of the 20th century, when suburban-style development catered almost exclusively to automobiles. 

Atlanta was No. 11. Raleigh-Cary was No. 13. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord hit No. 17.

Fully a third of Americans can’t or don’t drive, and for most, being able to walk places is important. They are our children, our young teens, our elderly and our disabled. The City of Charlotte has pushed hard, and admirably, in the past 10 years to make the city better and safer for pedestrians, by ordering sidewalks to be built in new subdivisions, building sidewalks where they’re lacking in earlier developments, and retro-fitting intersections to add crosswalks and pedestrian refuges.  Here’s to an even lower spot on the next ranking.

One of those retrofitted Charlotte intersections (at top) got national display at npr.org, with a Tuesday piece on “Morning Edition”  – “As America Ages, A Push To Make Street Safer.”   The piece talked about efforts to improve safety for the elderly, both pedestrians and drivers.   Although Charlotte isn’t mentioned in the piece, see that photo at the top? That’s Rozzelles Ferry Road, redesigned by the city to add bike lanes, crosswalks and extended sidewalks.

Photo credit: NPR and National Complete Streets Coalition.

Hey fellas, look out! I’m walking here!

What kind of drivers are most to be feared if you’re a pedestrian in New York City? If you’re thinking cabbies, think again. If you’re about to cough up one of those hoary jokes about women drivers – don’t. A New York Times article about a study from the New York City department of transportation tells us:

” … In 80 percent of city accidents that resulted in a pedestrian’s death or serious injury, a male driver was behind the wheel. (Fifty-seven percent of New York City vehicles are registered to men.)”

The article notes that even though a lot of pedestrians are killed in New York traffic, “New York is now far safer to travel within than most other American cities, with half the per capita fatality rate of Atlanta, Detroit or Los Angeles. But New York still trails world capitals like Berlin, London, Paris and Tokyo, all of which are statistically safer.”

The report itself lists a number of key findings. Here’s one: “Traffic fatalities in 2009 were down by 35% from 2001.” Here’s another that made me chuckle: “Most New Yorkers do not know the city’s standard speed limit is 30 m.p.h.” I think drivers the world over must be about the same. Everyone wants to go faster than the limit. For the record, Charlotte’s standard speed limit is 35 m.p.h. unless otherwise posted.