Do you really need a safety study?

I'll tell you the answer for free: walking is dangerous here and you need to fix it.

I was part of a safety study on a 6-lane road where residents walk all the time. You can see the worn path in the grass.

Residents complained to the department of transportation for years without anything more than a “here’s your comment card” type of response. They didn’t have any clout. But once a well-connected resident lost a loved one crossing this massive street, the news got wind that the problems for pedestrians were well known among experts.

Let’s conduct an in-depth, 12-intersection safety study.

It was no small effort.

• Traffic counts in the morning.

• Traffic counts in the evening.

• Lane measurements.

• Pictures documenting people walking along the edges and in the center medians.

• Analysis of crashes going back 3 years.

• Analysis of car delay at intersections (don’t laugh!).

• Sketches documenting driveways, parking lots, and every other transportation-y thing.

The speed limit is posted at 45 MPH, like most suburban arterials. The typical speed is 55 MPH, like most suburban arterials.

I almost got hit myself - twice - by cars trying to beat a yellow light. I was scolded for not wearing a reflective vest & hard hat... because "it's dangerous for us."

Why are we out here pretending to analyze whether or not this massive corridor is safe? There’s nowhere to walk and neighbors need to walk.

The ridiculous quote below is from a 2021 article responding to crashes that involved pedestrians on the same stretch of road studied by the experts.

The report to the DOT included all the raw data we collected, the mounds of analysis, the piles of pictures, and options to protect human life. After all, safety is the #1 priority of every DOT.

That study was about 15 years ago. The corridor still looks just like the picture below. At a public meeting, a senior DOT engineer acknowledged that their policy is to accommodate walking and bicycling as the primary modes of transportation. And that’s why, he said, they have a contract to mow the grass twice a year.