[sustran] Pedestrians Dying at Disproportionate Rates in America's Poorer Neighborhoods

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-pedestrian-deaths-analysis.html




Pedestrians Dying at Disproportionate Rates in
America's Poorer Neighborhoods

Many cities have made pedestrian safety a priority, but their efforts
rarely focus on poorer areas, which have approximately double the fatality
rates of wealthier communities.
BY MIKE MACIAG <http://www.governing.com/authors/Mike-Maciag.html> | AUGUST
2014
[image: Pedestrians cross a busy stretch of highway in South Fulton County
Ga.]
Pedestrians cross a busy stretch of highway in South Fulton County Ga.
Flickr/Stephen
Lee Davis


*In the middle* of a four-lane roadway in one of Miami’s poorest
neighborhoods, Carl Jones stood over a solid double yellow line as he
waited to cross one morning in 2012. Just before a car traveling west could
pass, another vehicle heading in the opposite direction hit Jones, sending
the homeless man airborne. Police found him more than a hundred feet away;
he died at a hospital shortly thereafter. The driver never stopped.

Cars frequently dart down the three eastbound lanes of that stretch of
Miami’s NW 79th Street. About half of the neighborhood’s residents live
below the poverty line, and many of them must walk to and from work, or to
the store. That often makes for a deadly combination. Over a five-year
period beginning in 2008, four pedestrians were struck and killed in the
same block between N Miami Avenue and NE First Avenue. “Practically every
day,” says a clerk at the Victory Foodmart across the street, “you hear
horns beeping and tires screeching.”

Miami’s 79th Street is an especially dangerous thruway. But it exemplifies
a troubling reality of urban areas across the country: Pedestrian deaths
are much more common in low-income areas than in better-off parts of a
city. Overall, the number of pedestrians killed nationwide has ticked up in
recent years, even as vehicular traffic fatalities declined.

No published national data assess income or poverty status of those killed
in traffic accidents. But according to a *Governing* analysis
<http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/pedestrian-safety-data-analysis-full-report.html>
of
accident location coordinates for the more than 22,000 pedestrians killed
nationwide between 2008 and 2012, poorer neighborhoods have
disproportionately higher rates of pedestrian deaths. In the nation’s metro
areas, the bottom third of Census tracts, in terms of per capita income,
recorded pedestrian fatality rates twice that of higher income tracts. The
same holds true for high-poverty communities. Metro-area Census tracts with
poverty rates below the national rate of 15 percent registered 5.3 deaths
per 100,000 residents over the five-year period, while in high-poverty
areas where more than a quarter of the population lives in poverty, the
rate was 12.1.

Census Tract Poverty Rate2008-12 Deaths Per 100K≤ 5%3.8>5-10%5.5>10-15%7
>15-20%8.3>20-25%9.9>25-30%11.2>30%12.6 Census Tract Per Capita Income2008-12
Deaths Per 100KHigh Income5Middle Income6.5Low Income10.4
Source: Governing analysis of NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System,
2008-12 American Community Survey data

In cities across America, pedestrian safety efforts have gained traction in
recent years as officials have sought to make cities more walkable. Such
efforts include ambitious goals for eliminating pedestrian deaths
completely, as well as plans to wholly remake streets. But while select
areas, typically downtowns and business districts, are often targeted for
improvements, it’s the less visible lower-income neighborhoods where
pedestrians are dying at the highest rates. It’s not just an inner-city
problem -- at least, not for long. As more low-income residents are priced
out of downtowns, and as poverty continues to rise in less
pedestrian-friendly suburban communities, higher pedestrian death tolls
could follow.

“Many [poorer] areas have been neglected from a transportation standpoint,”
says Scott Bricker, director of the nonprofit America Walks. “We need to
devote much more energy on providing safe transportation options for
everyone. Walking is a basic human right.”

A range of factors converge to make Miami one of the nation’s most
dangerous cities for pedestrians. For one, Miami and other Sun Belt cities,
with wide streets designed primarily to move automobiles quickly, have
higher pedestrian fatality rates in general. On top of that, Miami’s large
immigrant population includes many newer arrivals who may not be accustomed
to the norms of walking or driving the streets of a large American city.
And addressing pedestrian deaths -- especially when they’re mostly confined
to lower-income areas -- isn’t always a priority. Miami City Commission
Chairman Marc Sarnoff, who has pushed to make the city more walkable,
acknowledges there hasn’t been much public dialogue addressing pedestrian
safety in the city’s poorer neighborhoods. Instead, it’s trumped by other
issues. “Everybody’s concern is not so much the cars,” Sarnoff says. “It’s
more the gun violence.”

Miami-Dade County’s low-income Census tracts recorded 16.5 pedestrian
deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a rate of 8.9 for the rest of
Miami-Dade. That kind of gap persists even in places that are relatively
safe for pedestrians. Cook County, Ill., for instance, has one of the
country’s lower fatality rates for people walking on the street. But even
there, the lowest-income Census tracts recorded pedestrian deaths at a rate
of 8.2 per 100,000 residents over the five-year period, versus 4.9 per
100,000 in Cook County’s middle- and high-income communities. Nationwide,
such gaps are most evident in the lowest-income neighborhoods; in most
cities, pedestrian death rates for middle-income Census tracts differed
only slightly from wealthier communities.

Poverty does not cause pedestrian deaths, of course. But many aspects of
low-income neighborhoods make those streets particularly prone to
pedestrian accidents. Most notably, their residents are at greater risk
since they are more likely to be out walking. Census data showed greater
shares of commuters walk or take public transportation to work in
lower-income tracts. Poorer communities also develop differently.
Historically, many could not fend off construction of highways and major
arterial roadways the way wealthier communities did. “Low-income
neighborhoods either do not have the political clout or are not galvanized
to do it,” says Joshua Schank, who heads the Eno Center for Transportation.
“You don’t see highways running through the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”
Consequently, heavily trafficked arterial roadways with higher speed limits
may run right through these poorer neighborhoods. It is along those routes
where many pedestrians are hit, with slightly more than half (52 percent)
of deaths occurring on arterial streets for the five years reviewed.

Similarly, pedestrian-friendly infrastructure remains far less prevalent
throughout much of the nation’s poorer communities. “For a lot of
pedestrian improvements, the best bang for your buck will be in these
low-income areas,” Schank says. Bridging the Gap, a program of the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, conducted field research
<http://www.bridgingthegapresearch.org/_asset/02fpi3/btg_street_walkability_FINAL_03-09-12.pdf>
assessing
a sample of street segments in 154 communities in 2010. In high-income
areas, 89 percent of streets had sidewalks, while only 49 percent did in
low-income areas. Marked crosswalks were found in 13 percent of high-income
areas, compared to just 7 percent of streets in low-income communities. The
study found similar disparities for street lighting and traffic calming
devices.

Another challenge is funding. Part of the way localities target spending
for infrastructure improvements depends on the lens from which they view
the issue. If officials’ primary aim is supporting economic development,
they’ll typically direct funds to commercial districts. In Miami, for
example, officials have proposed a pedestrian promenade along a few blocks
of Biscayne Boulevard. Commissioners also recently approved a “pedestrian
priority zone” plan to widen sidewalks, lower speed limits and make other
improvements. Those plans are good for some pedestrians, but they won’t
address Miami’s larger problem: Both initiatives are limited to the city’s
downtown.

*Brookhaven, Ga.,* is a well-to-do suburb on the northeast perimeter of
Atlanta. It’s one of the newest cities in the state, incorporated in
December 2012. Many of Brookhaven’s residents are educated and well-off,
but parts of the city have undergone a demographic transformation in recent
years. Over the past two decades, the city’s southernmost neighborhood saw
an influx of lower-income residents, particularly Hispanics. Many live in
apartment complexes along Buford Highway, a thoroughfare that ranks among
the nation’s deadliest. Federal data indicates 13 pedestrians were killed
along an approximately two-mile stretch of the highway, just south of
Clairmont Road, between 2008 and 2012. For years, it has exhibited all the
hallmarks of a deadly corridor. With seven lanes of traffic and a 45 mph
speed limit, motorists don’t slow down. Much of the highway is dimly lit
and doesn’t have sidewalks.

A similar scenario is playing out elsewhere. Nationwide, the population
living in poverty soared 64 percent in suburban areas from 2000-2011, more
than double the growth rate in cities, according to the Brookings
Institution. As a result, suburbs are welcoming more residents that their
streets are least designed for.

Although pedestrians are frequently found at fault in accidents, it’s the
poor suburban street design that’s often conducive to dangerous behavior,
says David Goldberg with Transportation for America, which advocates
infrastructure investments. Crossings in suburbs are often far apart,
leading some people to put themselves at risk and walk across unmarked
areas between intersections. Indeed, the vast majority of pedestrian
fatalities do not occur at intersections. Faster-moving cars along suburban
streets are another crucial factor. About nine out of 10 pedestrians
survive crashes with vehicles traveling at 20 mph, while nearly all suffer
fatal injuries when hit by cars traveling 40 mph. “Some of the demographic
changes in the older suburbs have taken a lot of places by surprise,”
Goldberg says. “And they haven’t really been ready to deal with the impact.”

In Brookhaven, at least, that’s slowly beginning to change. The state
Department of Transportation has embarked on an $11.5 million pedestrian
improvement project, which includes building sidewalks along the entire
length of the highway, adding lighting and installing raised concrete
medians. Soon, pedestrians will be able to activate new crossing signals
mid-block without walking to the next intersection. A task force of local
officials has floated other ideas, including dropping “highway” from the
roadway’s name to entice drivers to slow down.

Brookhaven Police Chief Gary Yandura says much of the area’s problems stem
from intoxicated drivers and pedestrians leaving bars and liquor stores
lining the corridor. In late June, a Hispanic man was killed and another
suffered injuries in an accident after police say they left a nearby
nightclub. To educate the community about the dangers of drinking, police
have begun meeting with apartment complex managers and the local Latin
American Association. In Brookhaven, as in much of the rest of the country,
pedestrian deaths disproportionately affect minority communities. A Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention report published last year found
fatality rates for black and Hispanic pedestrians are about twice that of
whites. Adults age 75 and older also face higher risks.

Some larger cities have begun confronting these fatalities head on. In New
York, where more pedestrians are killed than any other U.S. city, Mayor
Bill de Blasio this spring announced an ambitious Vision Zero initiative
aimed at curbing fatalities. Vision Zero, which helped sharply reduce
pedestrian deaths where it was first introduced in Sweden, places the
safety burden on system design rather than individuals. In June, de Blasio
signed a package of bills pushing down speed limits, toughening penalties
for reckless drivers and expanding traffic data collection.

Other cities including San Francisco and the District of Columbia have set
similar goals of eliminating pedestrian deaths. Elsewhere, police have
honed in on certain problem intersections: In Novato, Calif., for example,
police conduct decoy operations targeting motorists who ignore traffic laws
at accident-prone crosswalks. A plainclothes officer attempts to cross the
street and if a driver fails to yield or is caught speeding, a cop farther
up the road pulls him or her over. Still, the degree to which cities employ
comprehensive approaches to reduce pedestrian-related collisions over the
long term remains inconsistent. “Some places, like Los Angeles, Chicago or
New York, are really trying to prioritize pedestrian safety,” Eno
Transportation’s Schank says, “but there are other places where it’s a
foreign concept.”

While all regions have their share of challenges, perhaps nowhere faces an
uphill battle quite like Florida. Of metro areas examined with at least a
million residents, four of the top five with the highest total per capita
death rates
<http://www.governing.com/gov-data/pedestrian-deaths-per-capita-by-poverty-rates-for-metro-areas.html>
were
in Florida. The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area, where 403
pedestrians died over the five-year period, posted the nation’s highest
fatality rate.

Billy Hattaway, the state’s roadway design engineer up until 2002, had
tried to convince Florida’s transportation leaders to implement
pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. But he says he could never get support
for his ideas. Frustrated, he left for consulting work, implementing his
ideas in other states. “It floored me that we were not doing more to deal
with this safety problem as a country,” he says.

When the department began ramping up its pedestrian safety efforts in 2011,
it recruited Hattaway to come back as its point person and a district
secretary. Florida has since hired dedicated staff in each transportation
district for pedestrian and bicycle safety, developed its first statewide
pedestrian plan, and held training sessions for more than 800 engineers and
planners throughout the state.

For Hattaway, shifting the state’s roadway design culture is critical.
“We’re going from moving cars to moving people,” he says. This includes
employing a data-driven approach, incorporating appropriate design based on
the context, such as wider sidewalks for downtown streets. Hattaway is also
pushing for more modern roundabouts, which require cars to yield on entry.
They’re currently a rare sight in Florida, with only nine on the entire
state roadway system. Changes are slowly beginning to take shape in some
communities. One proposal in the planning stages would divert heavy traffic
running through Immokalee, an agricultural hub with a high poverty rate, so
the main corridor can be remade into a more pedestrian-friendly environment.

In the end, addressing pedestrian fatalities will require a combination of
improving infrastructure and educating both drivers and pedestrians about
the dangers of the road. Safety advocates see parallels to drivers’
changing attitudes about wearing seat belts. Only a small fraction of
motorists buckled up as recently as the 1980s. But after a series of
campaigns and stricter laws, seat belts eventually gained widespread
acceptance. “We don’t want to see it take us 20 years to change behavior,”
Hattaway says, “but it’s going to take time.”

*Full results and methodology
<http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/pedestrian-safety-data-analysis-full-report.html>*

*Interactive map of all fatal pedestrian accidents*
<http://www.governing.com/gov-data/transportation-infrastructure/pedestrian-traffic-fatalities-accidents-2008-2012-map.html>

Metro Area Data

Of the 104 metro areas with at least a half million residents, all but four
recorded higher per capita pedestrian death rates in poor census tracts
(with poverty rates greater than 25 percent) than their metro area total.

Larger markers in the map below represent metro areas with higher
pedestrian death rates for Census tracts where more than a quarter of the
population lives in poverty. (Click to open full-screen interactive map in
new window
<http://www.governing.com/gov-data/pedestrian-deaths-per-capita-by-poverty-rates-for-metro-areas.html>
.)

<http://www.governing.com/gov-data/pedestrian-deaths-per-capita-by-poverty-rates-for-metro-areas.html>

Pedestrian fatality statistics are also available at the county level for
all counties with at least a half million residents: Open County Pedestrian
Deaths Tool
<http://www.governing.com/gov-data/pedestrian-death-counties-census-tracts-per-capita-rates.html>





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