To:

City and County Commissioners

From:

Bob Rackleff

Subject:

Our Pedestrian Safety Crisis

Pedestrian fatalities and injuries are the most unacknowledged transportation safety crisis in Leon County. From 1989 to 1998, motorists have killed 46 pedestrians and injured another 990 in Leon County. These deaths are 14.2 percent of the 323 traffic deaths in the same 10 years – an astonishing percentage, considering the declining share of walking as a form of transportation.

Compiled from Florida DOT statistics, here are annual totals for Leon County:

Year	Pedestrian Deaths	Pedestrian Injuries	All Traffic Deaths
1989	2	89	30
1990	4	106	26
1991	9	121	42
1992	7	98	38
1993	2	99	29
1994	5	111	37
1995	6	97	40
1996	3	128	31
1997	6	77	30
1998	2	64	20
Totals	46	990	323

Instead of calling sidewalks, signaled crosswalks, bike paths, medians, traffic calming and other such items "enhancements" or "amenities," we should call them "hazard elimination projects" with as high a priority as expanding vehicle lane miles.

Not only are we not eliminating hazards, we are deliberating creating new ones as we "improve" intersections and roads in ways that make it even more unsafe to cross on foot or by bicycle. For example, the new, "improved" intersection of Capital Circle and Mahan Drive has wide turning radii for autos, no crosswalks, and no median islands – creating another pedestrian-deadly hazard.

We have to face this reality: Our sole preoccupation with pouring tens of millions of dollars into road-building projects that increase lane-miles – to satisfy insatiable traffic counts – creates unnecessary pedestrian deaths, immobilizes one-third of our population, imposes huge public and private costs, and degrades our environment and quality of life.