- Pedestrian fatalities in the United States are the highest in 40 years.
- Residents of major U.S. cities, including Charlotte, Atlanta and Salt Lake City, are calling on local governments to help improve public transit and walking and biking areas.
- Backers face significant obstacles in building more walkable and traffic-friendly communities due to financial challenges.
On the weekend in March when Brittany Glover would have turned 34, her mother was standing on the same busy road in Atlanta where her daughter died six months earlier.
Glover, a flight attendant with a passion for clothes, had just emerged from an entertainment facility in the early hours of September 19, 2022. She had been living in Atlanta for just 48 hours when she was hit by a driver while crossing the Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. Elected officials and activists have called it one of the most dangerous streets in the city. The driver fled and his identity is unknown.
“Brittany didn’t have to die,” her mother, Valerie Handy-Carey, said, surrounded by her friends and supporters as the car zipped past. Atlanta needs to do more to protect pedestrians and cyclists, she said.
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She’s not the only one taking action.
Americans across the country are calling on lawmakers to end transportation spending so heavily focused on car culture as the U.S. pedestrian death toll hits a 40-year high. From Salt Lake City to Charlotte, North Carolina, disgruntled residents are calling for more funding for public transit and improvements to make biking and walking safer.
“We’re already at the point of diminishing returns,” said Robbie Greenwald, a professor of public health at Georgia State University. “We need to look at other transport options that make it easier, or we will be dealing with more congestion, more road fatalities and more air pollutant emissions. ”
According to the U.S. Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of pedestrian fatalities across the country will increase by 13% in 2022, and cyclist fatalities will increase by 2%.
“A lot of people have to bike or walk because that’s the only way to get around,” says transportation systems engineering researcher Rachel Panik of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Panic previously worked as a transportation planning consultant for cities in the Southeast. Most areas have an unmet demand for biking and walking, she said.
Valerie Handy Carey, whose daughter was killed by a car while crossing an intersection, stands at Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway and Finley Avenue in Atlanta March 19, 2023. Pedestrian fatalities have reached a 40-year high. (AP Photo/Sharon Johnson)
“More and more people want to ride a bike or walk, but they can’t because it’s not safe or the destination they need to go is too far away,” she said.
Kwanisha Ball, 31, was killed in November after being hit by a car while crossing the road on her way to work in the Decatur suburb of Atlanta. The driver was identified but never charged.
“I wanted to cross that street just to see how dangerous it was. It’s dangerous,” Ball’s mother, Courtney Tompkins, said. With the push of a button, pedestrians can cross her seven to eight lanes in less than a minute, adding that speed bumps, improved lighting and longer crossing times will help.
Atlanta City Councilman Jason Dozier said he was hit by a car while riding his bike and realized he might have been another victim.
“That experience really radicalized me,” Dodger said.
He and 10 city council members are proposing a zoning bill to prevent drive-thru and gas stations from being built around the Atlanta Beltline, a bike and pedestrian street that runs through many of the city’s neighborhoods.
Some city leaders across the country have already taken big steps to reduce motor vehicle traffic.
In 2021, the City Council of Charlotte, North Carolina, adopted a plan to expand the transit system over the next 20 years by adding shaded bike paths, bus routes, and commuter rail. Shannon Binns, chairman of Sustain Charlotte, a nonprofit focused on community sustainability, said one of her goals is to reduce solo travel by 25%.
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“It’s an ambitious goal, but of course there are a lot of budgetary decisions that need to be made to give people the opportunity to get around without a car,” Binns said.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall has made pedestrian safety a top priority in 2023 after 2023 got off to a tragic start with the city’s rising death toll. rice field. Within a few weeks, we had two sets of kids on foot and two sets of kids sharing a car. All the bicycles were hit by drivers, but fortunately they survived.
“The increasing number of vehicle accidents means that we have to move beyond business as usual,” Mendenhall said.
A local mobility advocacy group, Sweet Street Salt Lake City, is working with the city council to lower speed limits in residential neighborhoods and encourage the city to create a network of side streets for walking, biking and jogging.
“We truly believe our policy choices are killing people, and the way to stop that is to change our policies,” said Benjamin Wood, a board member of Sweet Street.
Despite some positive signs, supporters face high hurdles to creating walkable, traffic-friendly communities.
The Utah Department of Transportation introduced an on-demand service that combines public buses and ridesharing. Popular but lacking funds.
“We didn’t expect it to be this popular,” said Jon Larsen, the agency’s head of transportation, at a news conference. ‘ said. work session in January.
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In Charlotte, city council members are complaining about the lack of progress on the 2030 transit corridor system plan.
The city needs to obtain local funding to use federal funds for mobility projects. One option is to hold a local sales tax referendum, but city officials have already said it is unlikely to get state legislative approval. Charlotte city government lobbyist Dana Fetton recently told city councilors that if the transit plan were to be submitted to the council as is, it would “fail on arrival.”
Obtaining funding for safe or sustainable transportation projects is a national challenge.
The Georgia Department of Transportation will first devote resources to projects considered a state priority, such as interchanges and bridge improvements. That leaves lower-tier projects competing for funding, such as improving the parkway where Glover died in Atlanta.
According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, the Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway had more than 1,900 accidents in the 10 years before construction began to make it safer by narrowing part of the road from four to three lanes. . This change does not affect the interval where Grover was killed.
Standing on a busy street corner with some birthday balloons and flowers, Handy Carey said she was worried it would improve.
“I feel that Georgia, Atlanta, and Fulton County didn’t value my life or my daughter’s life,” she said. “So many people have died since Brittany was killed. How many more do we have to die?”
