tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36914433575656604052024-02-19T07:33:05.460-08:00Where the Sidewalk StartsThe most downtrodden mode of transportation deserves a step upKatiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.comBlogger520125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-33931341281812906522018-04-13T06:37:00.003-07:002018-04-13T06:37:54.671-07:00The Cost of Public Participation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-xy4aMWYESje0Jxk3HV4aiKPdiHClgPjInxxtM3eBddmjVdlM_PuFCzNlCfTpH_D5iwOKCUrb4CWO3MxA2LjFBd4Mj3N4Dv4qTrf0ilPw11zex4KvXVYOCTpbj5gqlGSXJ2QCiB0Du8/s1600/0410_ap_zucker_testimonyjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="834" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-xy4aMWYESje0Jxk3HV4aiKPdiHClgPjInxxtM3eBddmjVdlM_PuFCzNlCfTpH_D5iwOKCUrb4CWO3MxA2LjFBd4Mj3N4Dv4qTrf0ilPw11zex4KvXVYOCTpbj5gqlGSXJ2QCiB0Du8/s640/0410_ap_zucker_testimonyjpg.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2018/04/10/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-faces-senators-at-rare-hearing">Image source</a> (AP/<a href="http://www.apimages.com/Collection/Landing/Photographer+Carolyn+Kaster/0ff3e975ef0b4113a776cc84697355bd">Carolyn Kaster</a>)</td></tr>
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The typical citizen might not pay a team of communications experts and lawyers to spend hours doing hearing prep before public testimony, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/08/technology/zuckerberg-gets-a-crash-course-in-charm-will-congress-care.html">like Mark Zuckerberg did</a>. Nonetheless, there are significant costs associated with providing testimony at a public hearing before a group of decisionmakers. I tallied up what it recently cost me to speak for <b>one minute</b> before our local transit board (MTS) on a community project to promote walkability. Here's a breakdown of the costs:<br />
<br />
<u>Transportation - $15</u><br />
This includes mileage costs to drive to the meeting <a href="https://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/driving-cost-per-mile/">based on AAA's rates</a>, plus parking.<br />
<br />
Theoretically I could have taken transit to the meeting. That would have tripled my travel time, adding significantly to what I had to pay for childcare while I was away. Plus, a transit ticket costs three times more than parking at the MTS offices. (I'll allow that bit of irony to sink in before we move on).<br />
<br />
<u>Childcare - $45</u><br />
This is what I pay my nanny for 2.5 hours of work. It's on the high end of childcare rates in my area, but not wildly so.<br />
<br />
My youngest daughter is too young to be in school full time, so I needed to hire someone to watch her during the hearing, as well as to take my older daughter to school because the hearing started fairly early in the morning.<br />
<br />
<u>Clothing - $10</u><br />
This cost was tricky, because while I didn't buy something specifically for this hearing, I also don't typically wear a dress and heels on my average work-from-home/schlep-kids-around day. I amortized the cost of my outfit for the hearing, using the assumption that I'd wear again in the future for other work meetings or hearings.<br />
<br />
To anyone out there who's thinking, "It doesn't matter what you wear, it's what you say that counts." <br />
<br />
...that sounds like a lovely reality you exist in, sometime I'd like to join you there. Meanwhile, the rest of us know that appearance matters, especially for women. The way you present yourself in a hearing will impact how effective your testimony is. That doesn't *always* mean you show up in an expensive outfit (e.g., don't come to a hearing in a beach community wearing a suit, trust me on this), but in this case it did.<br />
<br />
<u>Time - 5 hours/$100-$325</u><br />
Here's another challenging cost to quantify. The value of time varies by person and circumstance, and is based on all sorts of factors that I'm not going to go into in detail because this isn't a post about opportunity cost.<br />
<br />
Suffice it to say, for a busy mom like me who works on an hourly/contract basis, time is at a premium and I valued it accordingly. The five hours I spent preparing for and attending this hearing were hours I didn't get to spend with my family, working, volunteering on other community projects--or sleeping, which I really missed. This isn't a robust economic analysis of time value, but I'm comfortable with this range for myself--and I think it's appropriate for many working adults.<br />
<br />
<u>Adding it all up</u><br />
In total, it cost me somewhere in the range of $170 to $395 to provide one minute of testimony at a public hearing.<br />
<br />
When we lament the lack of public participation (especially by women) in our planning process, are we really considering how much we are asking people to spend to participate? I place a very high value on being involved in my community in this way, but that's not true for most people. If we want to bring everyone into the conversations, we need to do more to reduce the time, travel, and other costs associated with public participation. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-58476866245315547572018-01-25T06:54:00.003-08:002018-01-25T06:54:34.006-08:00Walking Towards Justice Series<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyvTtbiuOVYt3qK6768hBWLAmwsoq5vAL4I5Hn_kS3Br-6cUjiCVM0C299ikeQM3sOOO3Df6pTJlTn6ra4fe67ZdLLcuNdb8QPntUVLJWVJnVVkjQgHWHAO9H_SkE2__q2NulH-bprQI/s1600/Street_Harassment-678x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="678" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyvTtbiuOVYt3qK6768hBWLAmwsoq5vAL4I5Hn_kS3Br-6cUjiCVM0C299ikeQM3sOOO3Df6pTJlTn6ra4fe67ZdLLcuNdb8QPntUVLJWVJnVVkjQgHWHAO9H_SkE2__q2NulH-bprQI/s640/Street_Harassment-678x1024.jpg" width="422" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm really happy that <a href="http://americawalks.org/">America Walks</a> has started this important discussion of how factors such as <a href="http://www.wherethesidewalkstarts.com/2017/10/on-strollers-sidewalks-and-sexism.html">gender</a>, <a href="https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/11/16/jacksonvilles-jaywalking-enforcement-is-very-very-racist/">race</a>, and income level impact the walkability of our communities. As an industry and advocacy community, we've been guilty of ignoring these issues for too long, and it's great to see that beginning to change.<br />
<br />
I'm especially excited to see that the next webinar in the series will focus on street harassment, which I've both experienced (like probably every other woman) and <a href="http://www.wherethesidewalkstarts.com/2017/04/walkability-starts-when-street.html">written about</a> in the past. Street harassment harms women's mobility, reduces walkability, and is a serious concern for women all over the world. I'm looking forward to this discussion!<br />
<br />
<a href="https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5489247318523318019">You can register for the upcoming webinar here.</a> </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-7567497788629955412018-01-18T05:30:00.000-08:002018-01-18T05:30:43.959-08:00Sexism on the Sidewalk: How Poor Street Design Keeps Women from Walking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-F88gCXEUYTF61yGqzPgsJvvePW6Of1cPcpDuBdwki6MNOQriyJjozlrmxWAxGr47YBl4qRzkGkqa8Lxgxycu3b1smVeO-FmtoDvxY0jEv4tozh2E7gDAooifQLaxm30t1RGvzDtqdTk/s1600/bellingham%2528128%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="1428" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-F88gCXEUYTF61yGqzPgsJvvePW6Of1cPcpDuBdwki6MNOQriyJjozlrmxWAxGr47YBl4qRzkGkqa8Lxgxycu3b1smVeO-FmtoDvxY0jEv4tozh2E7gDAooifQLaxm30t1RGvzDtqdTk/s640/bellingham%2528128%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: www.pedbikeimages.org/Dan Burden</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Can we walk
there?” my daughter asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was facing
down a long afternoon with four kids under eight. A trip to the local coffee
shop was in order, and since it was less than a mile away, I did what any good
walkability advocate would do: I tossed all the kids in the mini-van and drove
there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My choice,
like so many of women’s travel choices, was based primarily on safety. I was
confident the kids could walk that far, and I knew it would be the healthier
and more interesting choice for all of us--but without good walkability, I
wasn’t sure that I could keep them all safe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All across
the country women, in particular mothers, make similar choices every day. Poor
street design, disparate land use, time constraints, lack of personal
safety—all of these conspire to force women off their feet and into cars. We
have built a transportation system that discounts women’s travel needs, and
women—and our communities—are suffering for it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To
understand what we should be doing better, it’s important to understand <a href="http://trrjournalonline.trb.org/doi/abs/10.3141/1956-18">how women’s travel is different from
men’s trave</a>l. Women
make more trips than men, but travel shorter distances. They travel more with
children, and their trips are more likely to be <i>household-serving</i> (e.g., shopping, daycare, errands), rather than
for work or leisure. Women are also more likely to <i>trip-chain</i> (stop at multiple locations along the way during one
trip). In particular for women with young children who haven’t started school,
gender drives travel patterns.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqssnCOgOK940TMFq7Zz4qDQcT7vPHCV_dTdBZLyiEVptX7dUc63zLoFsdI17n6vtD9VLnK5DWmmoisCctbabgG8X9ZPuf7fb5xdTgKmobzrISrrCuyPckuwyVrdaOsQRyB1H7ERIRXc/s1600/coahilla.people%25289%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="620" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqssnCOgOK940TMFq7Zz4qDQcT7vPHCV_dTdBZLyiEVptX7dUc63zLoFsdI17n6vtD9VLnK5DWmmoisCctbabgG8X9ZPuf7fb5xdTgKmobzrISrrCuyPckuwyVrdaOsQRyB1H7ERIRXc/s640/coahilla.people%25289%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: www.pedbikeimages.org/Dan Burden</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In theory, the
trips women take the most are ideally suited for walking. Short trips to the
school, grocery store, or similar locations should be simple to complete on
foot--and in the most walkable neighborhoods, women do walk a lot. However,
more often we’ve built walkablility out of our neighborhoods. Our streets lack
sidewalks where kids can walking hand-in-hand or be pushed in a stroller. We
fail to provide safe, regular crossing points along key routes. We create
neighborhoods where stores, schools, and (critically) childcare are too far
apart to be accessed on a single walking trip. We fail to consider the design
elements (lighting, lack of hidden spaces, etc.) that can deter crime and make
women feel safe while walking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These
challenges have a real impact on women’s health. <a href="http://activityinequality.stanford.edu/">One
recent study investigated the physical activity patterns of over 700,000 people
in 111 different countries.</a>
Using travel data from cell phone records, the researchers developed a measure
of activity inequality that quantified the difference between the most
physically active and least physically active portions of the population. Not
surprisingly, the US appears near the head of the list of least equal
countries, topped only by Egypt, Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The study
found that the activity inequality measurement is an accurate predictor of
overall obesity levels within a country—countries that have high activity <i>inequality</i> have significantly more
obesity than countries with more equal activity levels. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdjqqQH4WOhbRK8_WizMUXu2OsQxu6X0Koc6t4UfpqARN0_kdNTfs3ZG2lpwU9vGcYFhNe7YYZkekp-H_qzgfRbDVesHAkKbZ7NIpA2QuuEeKc9HjokrtCCv54fdgiIdaHx14pXGG6oYc/s1600/Activity+inequality.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="1284" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdjqqQH4WOhbRK8_WizMUXu2OsQxu6X0Koc6t4UfpqARN0_kdNTfs3ZG2lpwU9vGcYFhNe7YYZkekp-H_qzgfRbDVesHAkKbZ7NIpA2QuuEeKc9HjokrtCCv54fdgiIdaHx14pXGG6oYc/s640/Activity+inequality.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: http://activityinequality.stanford.edu/</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Why do some
countries have higher activity inequality than others? In large part, because
of differences in physical activity between genders. In countries with high
activity inequality, women are much less physically active than men. The built
environment helps explain this disparity. The study showed that women are more
physically active in walkable places. Moreover, it found that in cities with
better walkability, activity inequality is lower and the gender gap between
physical activity starts to disappear. In other words, if we build cities that
allow women to walk safely, they will choose active travel—and overall health
will improve.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">How can we
do that? Here are a few ways:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: -0.25in;">Study
women’s travel</b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Designing
transportation systems that encourage women to walk requires understanding how
women travel, and what drives those travel patterns. Without more research into
gender and transportation, we risk designing cities that ignore the needs of
half their population. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><a href="https://nextcity.org/features/view/urban-planning-sexism-problem"><b>Include women in the transportation
planning process</b></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When
the predominant voices in transportation planning are men, it’s easier to
ignore women’s travel needs. Some ways that we can encourage more women to
participate in transportation planning are by meeting at the locations women
already visit regularly (e.g., schools), welcoming children into meeting spaces
or providing childcare during meetings, and ensuring women participate as
leaders and decision-makers in the transportation industry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> D</span></b><b>esign
walkable neighborhoods </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Women
will walk if they live in neighborhoods where they feel it is safe and
comfortable to do so. Places with sidewalks that are wide enough for strollers,
curb ramps, short street crossings, buffers along busy streets, and land uses
that are close together can all promote active travel by women. At the same
time, it’s important to address issues of personal safety and street harassment
that are often specific to women. Public spaces shouldn’t make women feel
vulnerable. Good lighting and visibility, more eyes on the street, and multiple
paths in and out of areas can help with this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Taking these
steps might not solve all the challenges of inequality, but they’re a start.
And they might just mean that next time, I’ll walk with all those kids to the
coffee shop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
Further
Reading:</span></div>
</div>
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/catalyst/2014/may/travel">Why do men and women travel differently? Study sheds light on gender differences</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/womens/chap20.pdf" style="font-family: inherit;">Gender, race, and travel behavior: An analysis of household an analysis of household-serving travel and commuting in the San Francisco Bay Area</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/womens/chap8.pdf">Trip-Chaining,
Childcare, and Personal Safety: Critical Issues in Women’s Travel Behavior</a></li>
<li><a href="http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conf/CP35v2.pdf">Is
It Safe to Walk Here? Design and Policy Responses to Women’s Fear of
Victimization in Public Places</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-47317392307782811652017-10-05T04:30:00.000-07:002017-10-05T07:04:45.623-07:00On Strollers, Sidewalks, and Sexism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, I'm *totally oblivious* for not hefting my double stroller up this amazing sidewalk, and instead choosing to walk in the street every day. </td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
It started with <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/22/pedestrians-stop-chatting-on-cell-phones-in-crosswalks-has-support/">what might have seemed like a straightforward question to someone like Gary Richards</a> of the Mercury News (aka Mr. Roadshow). A reader was upset by parents pushing strollers in the street. "Is there any legal prohibition to using the streets for such use when sidewalks are available?"<br />
<br />
Mr. Roadshow answered that while technically legal, strollers should use the sidewalk because "That's common sense."<br />
<br />
Readers were quick to <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/29/roadshow-walking-in-the-street-pushing-a-stroller-is-risky/">respond with letters detailing the many reasons</a> someone with a stroller (or a wheelchair) might choose the street over the sidewalk. Mr. Roadshow published a handful, but ended with a letter from a man complaining about "a pack of several oblivious moms pushing strollers in the street."<br />
<br />
That this is an example of blatant institutional sexism appears lost on Mr. Roadshow, not to mention plenty of other people in the transportation community. Here's the thing:<br />
<br />
<b>Travel is gendered. </b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
How and why women move in public spaces is different from men. One way that it's different is that women are responsible for more child-related travel. Sure, anyone *can* push a stroller. But most of the time, the person pushing the stroller is a woman. When we talk about travel with strollers, we're talking about women's travel.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Constructing public spaces that make travel unsafe for certain classes of people (i.e., women), but not others, is discrimination.</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To be clear, I'm not talking here about "interpersonal discrimination." Interpersonal discrimination is saying you can't have this job because you're a women. Institutional/structural discrimination is saying you're free to ride this trolley, but we're not going to give you space to store your stroller on it. Also a lot of strange men will probably try to talk to you while you ride.<br />
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Safe travel is something that should be enjoyed equally by everyone. It's not. Because of how they typically travel, some classes of people experience more danger on our roadways than others. When a roadway lacks a space for people to walk safely with strollers, that burden falls disproportionately on women (see above). Yes, this is a pedestrian rights issue. It's also a women's issue.</div>
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<b>Blaming victims of gender discrimination for conditions outside their control compounds the problem</b><br />
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Travel behavior is extremely complicated, but it's rarely irrational. When a group of women consistently chooses to walk in the street, it's safe to assume that they have a good reason for doing so--not that they lack common sense.<br />
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Chalking up women's behavior on the road to poor judgment is not only belittling, it leads to policy "solutions" that fail to address the root problem. If you assume the problem is that women don't understand the rules of the road, then yes, educating them about those rules and increasing enforcement might have an impact. But all the education and enforcement in the world isn't going to move women out of the street when they don't have a viable alternative.</div>
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<b>Pedestrian advocates must acknowledge the role that institutional bias plays in our cities and transportation networks, and work actively to remove it.</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
To their credit, <a href="http://americawalks.org/new-webinar-series-breaking-barriers/">some organizations are beginning to do this</a>, but as a community <a href="http://la.streetsblog.org/2017/05/08/when-a-progressive-community-fails-to-see-its-own-biases-bullying-and-bigotry-get-a-pass/">we still have a long way to go</a>. It's not going to be easy. This type of discrimination is so deeply incorporated into our society that it can be difficult to recognize, and even harder to eliminate. That doesn't mean we get to ignore it.<br />
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A good place to start is by taking the time to genuinely listen to what women (and people of color, and children, and people with disabilities, etc. etc.) say about their travel, rather than dismissing their concerns because they don't match our own experience.<br />
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(That goes for me too, for the record. I'm well aware that for all the challenges I face as a woman who walks and bikes, I also enjoy any number of benefits because I'm a white person living in an upper middle class neighborhood.)<br />
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<b>Remember why we do this.</b><br />
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We don't advocate for sidewalks, we advocate for the people who use them. Most often, those are people are women (and children, and the elderly, and the disabled, and people of color.) That makes use, as pedestrian advocates, de facto women's rights advocates.<br />
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It's time we began to act like them. </div>
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-23487476171476168502017-05-24T05:00:00.000-07:002017-05-24T05:00:38.744-07:00Is Our Obsession with Work Trips Making it Harder to Walk?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkWOlEMgEoKJBEprjN9-KPCngRGZeDGwfcYsacXuK5gxlr1NHmZoyG-d9TbH8z9SGSnHkgtBD8PPLltJ2-Pxdk_ZptwGQ-j7hIScIv-bFGNityBPSKkRoQA_V4DILB3NvayzvK1tYwCj4/s1600/Bike+to+Work+Day.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkWOlEMgEoKJBEprjN9-KPCngRGZeDGwfcYsacXuK5gxlr1NHmZoyG-d9TbH8z9SGSnHkgtBD8PPLltJ2-Pxdk_ZptwGQ-j7hIScIv-bFGNityBPSKkRoQA_V4DILB3NvayzvK1tYwCj4/s640/Bike+to+Work+Day.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Basking in the glory of Circulate San Diego's Captain VZ at a Bike to Work Day pit stop</td></tr>
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You can tell by my smile in this picture that I love a good Bike to Work Day pit stop as much as the next cyclist. But guess what? I'm not biking to work in this picture; I'm biking to the grocery store.<br />
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This underlines something about travel behavior and policy that has bothered me for a while: we focus on work trips, despite the fact that most of our travel isn't for work. The <a href="http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/offices/omsp/statewide_travel_analysis/Files/CHTS_Final_Report_June_2013.pdf">latest California Household Travel Survey data</a> shows that about 10 percent of California's travel is work-related, similar to the<a href="http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf"> latest national data</a> showing that commute trips are about 15 percent of travel.<br />
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There's a pretty obvious explanation for our work-trip bias: it's what the Census counts. Since 1960, the Census has asked every working American how they get to and from their job. Often it's the only data that's regularly (if you call every 10 years "regularly") gathered about walking and biking within a city. Because of this, Census data often becomes the proxy for "how many people walk or bike in our city."<br />
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To see the problems with this, let's go back to 1959 and take a look at why we started counting commute trips in the first place. Here's an excerpt from <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/59061126/">a congressional subcommittee hearing on plans for the 1960 Census</a>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6d3zFz7PDZQYW1Shr3v06LHWPCKYhm-pPV_olQcoEsBk2P15qJoufnqzmc0hIMrbeYx9FzhgPfIiGxPvgZdXXzRgY8zodr4Y-oLURyTq_SZ9RcqB7w5dC4X7aq07vyn7tGKfBJedp-Q/s1600/quote.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6d3zFz7PDZQYW1Shr3v06LHWPCKYhm-pPV_olQcoEsBk2P15qJoufnqzmc0hIMrbeYx9FzhgPfIiGxPvgZdXXzRgY8zodr4Y-oLURyTq_SZ9RcqB7w5dC4X7aq07vyn7tGKfBJedp-Q/s640/quote.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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As you can see, a key reason for counting work trips was to help solve "problems of highway planning." Put another way, the government was hoping to figure out how best to get workers (mostly men) who owned cars (mostly men and families with higher incomes) and lived far enough from central cities to drive on highways (mostly white people) to work.<br />
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Shockingly, focusing on the travel patterns of rich, white men led to investments in transportation infrastructure that mainly benefited wealthier, whiter, suburban households, usually at the expense of poorer, less-white, urban communities.<br />
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While we're (very) slowly beginning to consider issues of equity in our transportation system, the emphasis on work travel continues to color the way to talk about, and plan for, transportation. Here's a beautiful graphic from a report by ARUP, <a href="http://publications.arup.com/publications/c/cities_alive_towards_a_walking_world">Cities Alive: Towards a Walking Word</a>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgelTOO2lwt5NIFaUEK-39TFc0p0POYViQ3lxrrW2gOs_-i0W-UkQBT92oFUIsdm0AUNkghdNINra9km51wkNF_SH-Eboarg6gr0qMfxA4UzKzJUrEM4Oo8phYKWr0E6wS1DB0JM82OApk/s1600/Picture2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgelTOO2lwt5NIFaUEK-39TFc0p0POYViQ3lxrrW2gOs_-i0W-UkQBT92oFUIsdm0AUNkghdNINra9km51wkNF_SH-Eboarg6gr0qMfxA4UzKzJUrEM4Oo8phYKWr0E6wS1DB0JM82OApk/s1600/Picture2.jpg" /></a></div>
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You can see it shows that just four percent of Los Angeles trips are taken on foot. What it doesn't show is that's four percent of <i>work</i> trips. Based on California-specific data on <i>overall </i>trips, the percentage is likely much higher--probably closer to 15 or 20 percent.<br />
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It may seem like a minor point to belabor, but putting out information like this supports the misconception that people in LA don't walk, downplays the importance of walking as a critical travel mode, and makes it easier to brush aside the needs of pedestrians when we plan for transportation infrastructure.<br />
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As another example, San Diego's much-lauded <a href="https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/final_july_2016_cap.pdf">Climate Action Plan</a> includes one recommended action related to walking, which is to "implement pedestrian improvements in Transit Priority Areas to increase commuter walking opportunities."<br />
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I'm thrilled to see any recommendation in the CAP to invest in walking, but I have to wonder at the focus on commuter walking. Most trips, and particularly most walking trips, aren't to work. Would we see a bigger increase in pedestrian travel if we prioritized improvements for shopping/personal errands, for example, which make up a larger portion of weekly travel and are already more likely to be completed on foot? How would we spend our transportation dollars differently if we prioritized non-work trips?<br />
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Asking these questions isn't just an esoteric geek-out for planners who have nothing more exciting to do on a Saturday night. How we prioritize our transportation spending has real impacts on safety, equity, and economic stability for our cities. We continue to invest in transportation projects that improve travel to work for wealthy, white communities (hi there, <a href="http://www.keepsandiegomoving.com/Midcoast/midcoast-intro.aspx">Mid-Coast Trolley Extension</a>!). If we want to change that, we need to take the time to gather the data and write the policies that give equal weight to the travel of everyone in our cities, not just commuters. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-9683547810080030612017-04-05T12:25:00.001-07:002017-04-05T12:50:03.298-07:00Walkability Starts When Street Harassment Ends<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROoSfXLmZziz7u2i6S4Cuqc8IHeezQ-dVlwxlxzIlkyG-5epA4MFdP6J8043gJIFS2jebb1BzV9uQwl-9aQ380msdPgssZTjsjbsFe_i3mTLj5HhO7qzYsRxauupVWF-Hx6U4c9bx77A/s1600/stoptellingwomensmile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiROoSfXLmZziz7u2i6S4Cuqc8IHeezQ-dVlwxlxzIlkyG-5epA4MFdP6J8043gJIFS2jebb1BzV9uQwl-9aQ380msdPgssZTjsjbsFe_i3mTLj5HhO7qzYsRxauupVWF-Hx6U4c9bx77A/s640/stoptellingwomensmile.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Courtesy of <a href="http://stoptellingwomentosmile.com/">Stop Telling Women to Smile</a> by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh</span> </div>
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"Smile!"<br />
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It's been nearly 20 years, and I'm still angry at the young men who yelled that at me as I walked to and from my first urban planning job in downtown San Diego.<br />
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At the time, I was also confused. No one had ever explained to me how insidious street harassment can be. No one had pointed out how women are trained to think it's "their problem" if they don't appreciate a cat-call or a comment on their looks. No one told me that "Smile" is code for "Pay attention to me, even if you don't want to." All I knew was that I was uncomfortable. And I was mad.<br />
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Obviously that hasn't stopped me from walking and biking, but street harassment does keep other people--in particular women and people of color--away from active transportation. As a pedestrian advocate (and mom of two girls), here are the three things I'm going to do to make sure other people don't have to experience what I did.<br />
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<b>1. Call it what it is.</b><br />
Even now, street harassment is justified or explained away as harmless banter or "compliments." When we call out harassment for what it is, we give victims the ability to address it appropriately, instead of making them feel like they are the ones doing something wrong.<br />
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<b>2. Respond.</b><br />
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Street harassment is about power, and figuring out the right response is difficult when you're already in a position of vulnerability. <a href="http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/">Stop Street Harassment </a>is one great resource for ways to respond effectively, providing info and links from the practical ("<span style="background-color: white; color: #424244; font-family: "droid sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Using your voice, facial expressions, and body language together, without mixed signals, show assertiveness and strength.") to the whimsical:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of <a href="http://theriotmag.tumblr.com/">The Rior</a></td></tr>
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<b>3. Be an ally. </b><br />
Street harassers get away with harassment because their victims can't fight back. But often they're surrounded by people who can fight back, but who choose to remain silent. This needs to change, both on and off the street. Not only should we refuse to tolerate street harassment in the moment, we also need to include more women in conversations about transportation and infrastructure. In the 20 years since that first urban planning job, I've spent a lot of time in meetings where women are sorely underrepresented. We can't build transportation systems that work for everyone until we start hearing from everyone.
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-74147570627403280662017-02-21T09:40:00.001-08:002017-02-21T09:41:05.914-08:00How I Teach my Kids to Cross the Street<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary are some of my daughter's favorites, mainly (I suspect) because they chronicle the same struggles she faces in her life right now: starting school, sharing a room, grouchy parents.<br />
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Since the first books in the series were written in the late 1960s, I'm always struck by the subtle differences between social norms then and now. Ramona, for instance, walks to school. By herself. I<i>n kindergarten</i>. I'm pretty sure if I let my daughter do that I'd be considered crazy, if not criminal.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjjFn2D5pzMP4ZpgV3Ccopn8Ib9rapGVFaLQp7cHgKyC7EihvT8FRxMkXndAGNO_lZEd8KtcD71dT0uvbvxU4HlpuX6EYPr2AZB2M_sQB4bBPQjAqViIEBM9j2Fq6vrq6LF1yHtLhiP4/s1600/IMG_3645.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjjFn2D5pzMP4ZpgV3Ccopn8Ib9rapGVFaLQp7cHgKyC7EihvT8FRxMkXndAGNO_lZEd8KtcD71dT0uvbvxU4HlpuX6EYPr2AZB2M_sQB4bBPQjAqViIEBM9j2Fq6vrq6LF1yHtLhiP4/s640/IMG_3645.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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But I've got big dreams of someday sending these short people off on the epic four-block walk to school without the slew of grown-ups you see in the background, and that means I spend a lot of time talking to them about how to walk safely. Here's what I tell them about crossing the street:<br />
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<b>1. Be predictable</b><br />
Kids are already at a disadvantage because they're small, and thus less visible. If they're going to be seen by drivers, they should put themselves in places where those drivers are already going to look. That means no darting out between cars, crossing mid-block, or running a red light. It means crossing in the crosswalk, ideally at an intersection with stop signs or signals. I fully believe that there are times and places where crossing rules should be broken, but I don't trust my kids to be able to make those types of judgment calls yet.<br />
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<b>2. Use the Three-Second Rule</b><br />
I see so many kids treating the crosswalk signal like it's a checkered flag in a drag race, launching into the street the second the light turns green. Every time it happens, I cringe. Drivers run those lights All. The. Time.<br />
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Knowing this, I've stolen a rule my friend created for her kids: count to three before crossing. It won't save my kids from drivers who blatantly run lights, but it keeps them out of the path of drivers to try to sneak through the intersection just as the light changes.<br />
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<b>3. Look, Listen, and Go</b><br />
That's the mantra for my kids when they cross the street, and they're probably already sick of hearing me say it. Every time we walk I remind them that it doesn't matter what I (or anyone else) says, at the end of the day it's their responsibility to look and listen for cars before they cross.<br />
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<b>4. Trust No One</b><br />
This one can be hard, because kids are used to being told what to do. But when it comes to crossing, I teach my kids that they need to be the ones to decide what's safe. That means making eye contact with drivers before crossing, not just assuming they will stop when they're supposed to.<br />
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It also means refusing to cross when a driver stops for them in the middle of the road. Rarely do I feel called to yell in blog posts, but will everyone PLEASE STOP DOING THIS. You've just created a super dangerous situation for my kids by pressuring them to cross the street while blocking their view of the roadway <i>and </i>blocking other drivers' views of my kids. I tell my kids to just wave those drivers on, and wait until they can cross safely on their own.<br />
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Don't let all these rules give you the wrong impression: I absolutely think kids should be allowed to walk places on their own, and I have no intention of holding my kids' hands every morning until they leave for college. Ramona was so proud the first time that she walked to school on her own, and I want my kids to have that same feeling too. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-43007096711524571942017-02-07T11:20:00.000-08:002017-02-07T11:20:19.141-08:00Road Funding as an Awkward Dinner Party<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZArqobYF93ON9HcP8njajeiiUEJzKYFnC-qDB56H2kyaWqyKOO_GWQH3YNThJOx63lbdRViwG0qE8yOPag1KMFEShwz6FXhUNN0n1fvjnzsTXTThC5uf4UuxbMm9EFtq7H4YwQysCA74/s1600/Dinner+table+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZArqobYF93ON9HcP8njajeiiUEJzKYFnC-qDB56H2kyaWqyKOO_GWQH3YNThJOx63lbdRViwG0qE8yOPag1KMFEShwz6FXhUNN0n1fvjnzsTXTThC5uf4UuxbMm9EFtq7H4YwQysCA74/s640/Dinner+table+3.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.strongtowns.org/">Strong Towns</a>, one of my favorite wonky planning blogs, recently posted this story explaining how <a href="https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/2/6/road-funding-as-a-prisoners-dilemma">Road Funding as a Prisoner's Dilemma</a>. I expanded on what they wrote a bit to focus on how road funding is particularly problematic for people who walk and bike. Here goes:<br />
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We've all had that moment at the end of a night out to dinner with friends when the last drink has been guzzled and it's time to split the bill. Many a sitcom episode has hinged over whether the bill should be split evenly between all parties, or painstakingly calculated on a who-had-which-entree basis. <br />
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It turns out that the way we think about paying the dinner bill is remarkably similar to how we think about paying for roads.<br />
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Imagine that you're out to dinner with three other friends. It's a small table, so you can all see what the other person orders. When the bill comes, it's easy enough to split things up in a way that makes it "fair" for everyone. If Friend A had an extra glass of wine, she knows her friends will notice if she doesn't chip in a few more dollars. If Friend B forgets to add in the tax, it will be obvious to everyone. Because of this, no one at the table is tempted to have more than they want or can afford to pay for.<br />
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Now imagine that you're out to dinner with a large group of friends and acquaintances, including a few people you've never met before. Since the table is huge, you can't really see what the people at the other end are ordering, but you can tell right away that it's going to be too complicated to figure out individual checks. You resign yourself to splitting the bill evenly 23 ways, regardless of your personal menu choices. Because of this, you order a few extra drinks so that you're sure you get your money's worth. You wake up the next morning with a nasty hangover, and a lingering sense of injustice. Even though you didn't really want that fifth beer, drinking it was the only way you could think of to get your fair share.<br />
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We fund roadways as if we're all sitting at a really big dinner table. A large part of roadway funding comes from things like sales taxes, property taxes, or development fees. None of these have a direct relationship to driving, so they don't have a strong influence on our travel choices--just as what I eat for dinner at the big table doesn't have a direct relationship to my bill.<br />
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The problem is that my steak dinner isn't free, and neither is the one that the person at the other end of the table ate. Driving does impose real costs on our communities, in the form of congestion, pollution, and poor traffic safety. But since no one is held directly accountable for these costs, we have an incentive to drive more than we should. I eat more than I really want to at the big group dinner, because the alternative is paying the price of a bottle of wine when all I had to drink was water. And that's not just bad for me--since everyone at the table does the same thing, we all end up overeating and spending more on dinner than we wanted to.<br />
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So who's the pedestrian in all of this? The pedestrian is the vegetarian at the table. She's the person who is always going to end up overpaying for dinner, because her salad is never going to cost as much as her neighbor's roast chicken. As vulnerable road users, pedestrians bear a disproportionate burden of the costs of driving. But they pay the same bill as everyone else in the form of sales taxes, income taxes, and property taxes.<br />
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This bothers me at the policy table almost as much as it bothers me at the dinner table (can you tell I'm the vegetarian?). Transportation planners have long touted direct fees as the best way to ensure drivers pay the true cost of their travel choices. California is <a href="http://www.dot.ca.gov/road_charge/">finally getting serious</a> about implementing the idea. Hopefully our decisionmakers will get on board. Otherwise, we're all in for a serious hangover.<br />
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-13334308886535795412016-05-16T06:00:00.000-07:002016-05-16T10:18:18.846-07:00The Importance of Road Width, in Three Pictures<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Biking home this weekend, I was struck yet again by how critical roadway width is to creating a walkable (and bikeable) environment. Here are some Google Streetview shots of the route we took down Jewel Street in Pacific Beach, one of my favorite (read: I don't feel like I'm about to be driven off the road) north-south rides through PB.<br />
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Here's what Jewel Street looks like when it's 30 feet wide, with parallel parking on both sides and a parkway between the sidewalk and street.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI-006mQp0yYS4FK70S8S1oocpnz04f5cFfJJFabiC_8zYT-qom22Dn9SbEnVsidFDfsY2o-zOUYEGJS4NUiRPcryBcFXfkN6NdYYEMhkV4xgwKxzFwin8Zrwr-EqELP57E50qQVhOxQk/s1600/Screenshot+%2528186%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI-006mQp0yYS4FK70S8S1oocpnz04f5cFfJJFabiC_8zYT-qom22Dn9SbEnVsidFDfsY2o-zOUYEGJS4NUiRPcryBcFXfkN6NdYYEMhkV4xgwKxzFwin8Zrwr-EqELP57E50qQVhOxQk/s640/Screenshot+%2528186%2529.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Notice that even with only a few scrawny palm streets and for shade and relatively narrow sidewalks, the street still feels comfortable and "human-scaled." (It also feels safe to bike on, even without fancy bike infrastructure, because the narrow travel way forces cars to slow down.) I regularly see kids playing in the street here, using the roadway as an extension of their yard.<br />
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Here's Jewel Street a few blocks further down, with a 40-foot width. This would be considered the pretty much the minimum width for a street built today.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycBbhlhoH9_QSC_hxygb1F0Zh30GLZz15rH7Iq3ZKqBSQXFIdCttIK0CF30yABCZ6aJGGFqDRlHgXjKoTPALQ-2aSpBtAtfbv8RjmO8GBbCCkJV22JcfxB5FK-BQwgUV5JXxHshSvvsQ/s1600/Screenshot+%2528187%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycBbhlhoH9_QSC_hxygb1F0Zh30GLZz15rH7Iq3ZKqBSQXFIdCttIK0CF30yABCZ6aJGGFqDRlHgXjKoTPALQ-2aSpBtAtfbv8RjmO8GBbCCkJV22JcfxB5FK-BQwgUV5JXxHshSvvsQ/s640/Screenshot+%2528187%2529.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Even though nothing else has changed besides the width (arguably the parkway and street trees are a even little nicer), the street feels more "auto-oriented" and the neighborhood seems less inviting for walking or biking.<br />
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Then we arrive at this monstrosity, a few blocks further north. At a width of about 46 feet, the street allows for diagonal parking on one side--but the awful design of the multi-family housing to the east precludes parallel parking on the other side of the street, making for an exceptional wide travel way:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL49AqpxwOwLN3KHosve-NMo28WLYHF5nmXdo8lMeBd5uWLN0hFgTHJlQu-ZIwfD-7aIFALAX785F5bE2neLxOMIPqeSNp338fyf3yJzJ-vAjYZZqU1MsejplNU1HF1OB9MKMwSmX-fgo/s1600/Screenshot+%2528188%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL49AqpxwOwLN3KHosve-NMo28WLYHF5nmXdo8lMeBd5uWLN0hFgTHJlQu-ZIwfD-7aIFALAX785F5bE2neLxOMIPqeSNp338fyf3yJzJ-vAjYZZqU1MsejplNU1HF1OB9MKMwSmX-fgo/s640/Screenshot+%2528188%2529.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here all semblance of walkability has been sacrificed in the name of driving and parking. The parkway is gone, the sidewalk slopes awkwardly to allow cars to drive over it at any point, and there's not a street tree in sight. And then of course, there's the hideous design of the multi-family housing that lines this block. Particularly on the right, this street says to me, "Here is a place where cars live. If you're lucky, we might let some people squeeze in, too."<br />
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We need to be sure our roadway standards result in more of the first picture and less of the last. Narrow streets are great streets, for everyone.<br />
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-88483658576290971252016-05-09T06:00:00.000-07:002016-05-09T06:00:27.687-07:00Walking in Slovakia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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John Westmore has posted a new episode in his great <a href="http://www.pedestrians.org/">Perils for Pedestrians</a> series, this time focusing on walking and biking in the City of Bratislava, Slovakia.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7sEhngL7-0k" width="560"></iframe><br />
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While pedestrian and bicycle advocacy is relatively new to Slovakia, there seems to be a strong and growing group of advocates who are working to make public spaces more accessible on foot and by bike. They've created some ad-hoc sharrows and DIY crossings to help provide safer and more direct routes to people using active transportation in the city.<br />
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I actually spent a day in Bratislava several years ago, and found it to be fairly walkable (as compared to most cities in the US, that is). You can see that there are many spaces in the central part of the city where pedestrians have full reign in the street space.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OV8bED1fjLyc3_f-TA2G3YZ4SjHW7tx0VGhUNgLNQ1B-sGaeWKCEGWJf7XgcmxpswfwQvp4JHbmsHa0HRuOlbT-OlhhSlQVUEydREN1_X-Uys0DmSDhWXSfoGzFlhK15igNHoUJsT_M/s1600/P1070902.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OV8bED1fjLyc3_f-TA2G3YZ4SjHW7tx0VGhUNgLNQ1B-sGaeWKCEGWJf7XgcmxpswfwQvp4JHbmsHa0HRuOlbT-OlhhSlQVUEydREN1_X-Uys0DmSDhWXSfoGzFlhK15igNHoUJsT_M/s640/P1070902.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNSYshlN2ArL6a-EcGKFBPgIyCX4HmD33KIc9PrlKfnmlHwjGKaX3On8PP2qjVvkMn2aBIDsDKqipi1LrUkbuyYunrdbuNkC0l1MesTOs7vD74K7VUpUAAM2KGapwDpuFwufyIMcxU1I/s1600/P1070923.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNSYshlN2ArL6a-EcGKFBPgIyCX4HmD33KIc9PrlKfnmlHwjGKaX3On8PP2qjVvkMn2aBIDsDKqipi1LrUkbuyYunrdbuNkC0l1MesTOs7vD74K7VUpUAAM2KGapwDpuFwufyIMcxU1I/s640/P1070923.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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There's also a nice pedestrian path along the waterfront, where you'll also find restaurants and shops below (undoubtedly expensive) residential development that takes advantage of the riverfront views.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnIVJVkTVIumdJpzXnY2T8-lPUmnGE2NJ_IIqoZ0LkBxOnTrgetkaIfwNaRBylmdZ5BBJBzwKGrUlnKHfUMMOk6eKMhrv3wPnLYJqOd9x5RU_q7H2KpZKYu7Jnz4ORan-B9ZNRXfmO2n8/s1600/P1070906.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnIVJVkTVIumdJpzXnY2T8-lPUmnGE2NJ_IIqoZ0LkBxOnTrgetkaIfwNaRBylmdZ5BBJBzwKGrUlnKHfUMMOk6eKMhrv3wPnLYJqOd9x5RU_q7H2KpZKYu7Jnz4ORan-B9ZNRXfmO2n8/s640/P1070906.JPG" width="640" /></a>Of course, there are also the same problems that plague many older (and not so old) cities that were designed prior to the automobile. Sidewalks have been squeezed to the edge of the street and narrowed to unreasonable widths to make room for vehicle traffic, and parked cars block the pedestrian travel way to the extent that people are forced to walk in the street itself.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEharZTFBOmJ8ILQczSd9IED5OKzUGo7VXQr2Tobnt8Qf7SQPZz1l8LODFFyJfTq4Ra3iny8QSKBqpuWVmULfc9vLQFugpD02tI_Mo-T5Rd66J67RsGu0-SZwzdauidS2ibawgEK2MvDLzE/s1600/P1070919.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEharZTFBOmJ8ILQczSd9IED5OKzUGo7VXQr2Tobnt8Qf7SQPZz1l8LODFFyJfTq4Ra3iny8QSKBqpuWVmULfc9vLQFugpD02tI_Mo-T5Rd66J67RsGu0-SZwzdauidS2ibawgEK2MvDLzE/s640/P1070919.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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Given this, it's encouraging to hear local advocates talking about creating more walkable and bikeable streets. I was especially struck by one of the first people interviewed in the segment, who described public space as, "A space where you can see democracy on the sidewalk." <a href="http://www.wherethesidewalkstarts.com/2011/01/whose-sidewalks-are-they-anyway.html">I've written before about the idea of sidewalks as democratic spaces</a>, but I think that view is especially poignant when you're talking about sidewalks in a country where most people still remember a time when no place in the country--certainly not the sidewalks--was democratic.</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-43073452708962373302016-04-24T08:27:00.000-07:002016-04-24T08:27:06.980-07:00Is the street Open or Half-Open?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEq9x7CJSMvlfDS4f3E8KBjbYQzmkom3G5Vg5Mh0MQPwXBAE2zDLE0M-uzwotis771fzWCbEYBltLlBl1aBq3f4BlTxlYE463KBkzZNYNr7Z4WN_8WAUNfHnHzr9OkLA5-6Yl6Cj_Iy2U/s1600/IMG_2952.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="590" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEq9x7CJSMvlfDS4f3E8KBjbYQzmkom3G5Vg5Mh0MQPwXBAE2zDLE0M-uzwotis771fzWCbEYBltLlBl1aBq3f4BlTxlYE463KBkzZNYNr7Z4WN_8WAUNfHnHzr9OkLA5-6Yl6Cj_Iy2U/s640/IMG_2952.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cruising down the street at a CicloSDias event in Pacific Beach</td></tr>
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I have a confession to make: sometimes I have a problem fully embracing Ciclovia events. Turns out I might not be alone, although the reasons outlined in <a href="http://la.streetsblog.org/2016/04/22/when-are-open-streets-events-really-open-streets-events/#more-117122">this post from LA Streetsblog</a> might be a little different from mine.<br />
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As Joe Linton writes, there were two Open Streets events this Saturday in the LA area. One, in Lawndale, opens a two-mile route from 8 am to 10 am. The second, in Burbank, allows cyclists who pre-register to ride a one-mile parade ride (the streets were already closed) for an hour and a half before the parade starts.<br />
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In both cases, Linton questions the short duration, minimal length of the route, early hours (too early for many adjacent businesses to be open), and (in the case of Burbank) pre-registration requirement. I'd add the requirement (in Lawndale) that kids under 13 be accompanied by an adult to the list of concerns. I was well under 13 when I rode my bike unaccompanied to school, piano lessons, and who knows where else--certainly more dangerous places than a car-free public street full of vigilant adult eyes.<br />
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Linton suggests that events like these, with their many restrictions and short duration, don't really demonstrate the benefits of a "true" Open Street event, where long routes full of engaging activities help the public imagine different (and maybe even better!) ways of using street space than just for moving cars. He points out that these lackluster "ciclovia-itas" might even backfire, giving critics an easy example to point to when they complain that it isn't worth the trouble to close streets to traffic.<br />
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To these criticisms I'd also add my own, which I think can be a problem with many ciclovia events: they're too bike-centric. As a cyclist I love biking and enjoy the ability to zip down a street unencumbered by pesky automobiles. As a pedestrian, I feel nervous about wandering a street filled with less-than-expert cyclists pedaling in every direction--and I definitely wouldn't turn my unpredictable two-year-old loose in that sort of environment.<br />
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Open streets events are often sold as a way to highlight and encourage visitors to local businesses that line the route. But it's pedestrians who visit those businesses, not cyclists (unless they're riding their bikes into the business, a cyclist becomes a pedestrian once they dismount). I'm not saying that who can't open streets to both modes at the same time, but if you look at the Burbank and Lawndale events (as an example), they're billed as primarily biking events. The "ticket" to the Burbank event is even a bike-shaped pin.<br />
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If we want to have successful Open Streets events that fulfill the true intent of the Ciclovia movement, we do need to make sure the routes and hours are long enough to provide value to participants. But we also have to make sure that all users feel safe and welcome along the Open Street route. Otherwise, the street is only "half-open" to pedestrians. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-35384101425299447172015-10-30T05:30:00.000-07:002015-10-30T05:30:00.206-07:00Trick-or-Treat!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQ4QJZmw_UsYru55W25souWtcB-RDUySYV9c4VFXyJrSGfDSOBqzBaJ7tDBPBes88UWW7m_OGlTmF33W5KRSxSznvOrzNpdX6eNe3PLE-xzv-bx6PNmEsoFPJpm7rno32cvppyiveynk/s1600/trick_or_treating_together.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQ4QJZmw_UsYru55W25souWtcB-RDUySYV9c4VFXyJrSGfDSOBqzBaJ7tDBPBes88UWW7m_OGlTmF33W5KRSxSznvOrzNpdX6eNe3PLE-xzv-bx6PNmEsoFPJpm7rno32cvppyiveynk/s640/trick_or_treating_together.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.walkarlington.com/">WalkArlington</a></span></div>
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A quick reminder that the most fun night of the year is also one of the most dangerous for pedestrians--especially short ones who have a tendency to be more focused on the next sugar handout than the cars on the street (that's me I'm describing). </div>
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If you're looking for a neighborhood that with give you the most treat for your trick, check out <a href="http://www.zillow.com/blog/trick-or-treat/">Zillow's Trick or Treat Index for 2015</a>, which ranks cities and neighborhoods based on factors such as crime rates and housing density. </div>
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Have fun!</div>
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-53999865567070518522015-07-08T05:30:00.000-07:002015-07-08T05:30:00.535-07:00Walking Comes First in European Transportation Policy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It seems like we're always looking to Europe as we try to improve pedestrian safety here in the US. Are they really doing things so much better over there? Short answer: yes. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZe1mXT45VCfo_IhI3gZTCgvMrO5FFFTub4eqbHpmQ3a1xwmusOq-0YuIHK6pRmz0Nzuk29wJlRyaJX9uWodB30Gf75-izA9fJNv_GM8wkoWLpkiqroQgVOrbz5YFv_Y4WaDWm19EiRb8/s1600/ped+pyramid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZe1mXT45VCfo_IhI3gZTCgvMrO5FFFTub4eqbHpmQ3a1xwmusOq-0YuIHK6pRmz0Nzuk29wJlRyaJX9uWodB30Gf75-izA9fJNv_GM8wkoWLpkiqroQgVOrbz5YFv_Y4WaDWm19EiRb8/s400/ped+pyramid.jpg" width="193" /></a>You can see why by taking a look at this one simple chart from the European Transport and Safety Council's new report <a href="http://etsc.eu/wp-content/uploads/etsc_pin_flash_29_walking_cycling_safer.pdf">Making Walking and Cycling on Europe's Roads Safer</a>. It illustrates one of the report's key recommended policies: <br />
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"Further develop a policy of modal priority for road users, particularly in urban
areas, the hierarchy being based on safety, vulnerability and sustainability.
Walking should be at the top of the hierarchy, followed by cycling and use of
public transport."<br />
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That's pretty wonky policy language to wade through, so let me put it more simply: <b>Walking comes first.</b><br />
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Let me translate a few more of those wonky policies for you.<br />
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"Give priority in road maintenance to the quality of surfaces on footways, cycle
paths and the parts of carriageways most used by crossing pedestrians and by
cyclists."<br />
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<b>Walking comes first</b> when maintaining roads.<br />
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"Provide shorter and safer routes for pedestrians and cyclists by ensuring that
routes are direct and that the quickest routes are also the safest. Travel time
should be increased on unsafe routes and decreased on safe routes."<br />
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<b>Walking comes first</b> when designating travel routes.<br />
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"Prioritise the safety of cyclists and pedestrians when developing sustainable
urban mobility plans."<br />
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<b>Walking comes first</b> when drafting transportation plans.<br />
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You get the idea.<br />
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It's worth noting that the report also devotes a considerable amount of space to promoting low speed limits in urban areas, particularly those with lots of bike and ped traffic:<br />
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"Encourage local authorities to adopt zones with a speed limit of 30km/h in residential areas and areas used by many pedestrians and cyclist."<br />
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"Introduce lower speed limits for junctions and intersections."<br />
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"Prepare national enforcement plans with yearly targets for compliance in the areas of speeding, especially in urban areas, where there are high numbers of pedestrians and cyclists."<br />
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I'll do the math for you--that's 18 mph. Most of the roads in my neighborhood are designed for speeds at least twice that high, and that's just the residential roads. I'd love to see a state law lowering the default speed on residential roads to 18 mph, but I doubt that's happening any time soon. Until then, maybe Pacific Beach can be the test case?</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-86311432376779713602015-06-30T07:42:00.000-07:002015-06-30T07:42:00.252-07:00Latest Child Traffic Safety Statistics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is out with its <a href="http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812154.pdf">latest fact sheet</a> on traffic safety, this time focused on child safety. Including data from 2013, the latest year from which data is available, here are a few key statistics:<br />
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<li> Of the 4,735 pedestrian traffic fatalities, 236 (5%) were children</li>
<li>One-fifth (21%) of the child traffic fatalities were pedestrians</li>
<li>Of the estimated 66,000 injured pedestrians in traffic crashes, 10,000 (15%) were children</li>
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It took me a minute to recover from that first statistic--nearly 5,000 people killed walking in just one year. The good news is that according to the fact sheet, the number of child pedestrian traffic fatalities decreased by 36 percent, from 366 fatalities in 2004 to 236 in 2013. The biggest decrease came in the oldest age group. Does this mean our roads are getting safer, or are kids just walking less?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIX23jrxvPKp3CS2TwNJv9ihMI2vaRvmQx1sglVVnfjh4dxYwbflnzLfX3IbKcWCLqfPoqo58YHaKfAndJ34-cxUUJXFoMHYZWh-iRsbrxlEvix_vFm-HC6Ki1SM7Vxvd47vwBLBj7stk/s1600/child+ped+fatalities+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIX23jrxvPKp3CS2TwNJv9ihMI2vaRvmQx1sglVVnfjh4dxYwbflnzLfX3IbKcWCLqfPoqo58YHaKfAndJ34-cxUUJXFoMHYZWh-iRsbrxlEvix_vFm-HC6Ki1SM7Vxvd47vwBLBj7stk/s640/child+ped+fatalities+2013.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here's one statistic that might help answer that question: 81 percent of child pedestrian traffic fatalities occurred at non-intersection locations, an increase from 77 percent in 2012. This suggests to me that any improvements in safety could be due to fewer kids walking, and not to safer roads.<br />
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It's also an important reminder that we continue to have a serious problem with roadway design. Roads are for people, and they need to keep all people safe--especially kids. Right now we've only designed them to keep drivers safe, and the result is dire for kids who dare to venture into roadways outside the designated pedestrian crossing locations.<br />
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The fix for this problem is not to push kids off roadways or blame them for "foolishly" using space that is meant for cars. The fix is to create roadways where kids aren't killed when they walk in "non-intersection locations." It's time to stop protecting cars at the expense of protecting children.</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-31538679008637182392015-06-23T06:00:00.000-07:002015-06-23T06:00:03.791-07:00When you design roads this way, people die<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the downsides of being a pedestrian advocate and transportation planner it that I have to spend a disproportionate amount of time reading horrifying <a href="http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Construction-Begins-at-Point-Loma-Intersection-Where-Infant-Died-308700841.html">stories like this one</a>, about a 7-month-old baby killed (and father severely injured) at a street crossing here in San Diego. It's so hard to wrap my head around what it must be like for these parents as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives.<br />
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This week the City is working on updates to the intersection aimed at preventing similar crashes in the future, including installing a new signal at the intersection. We say it so often that it's cliche, but it shouldn't take the death of child to fix intersections that are so obviously dangerous. Here's a picture of the crossing where the crash took place:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3-SM6TFgzQQ-49c8w19onhw-97REK5PIj5sBBmqXUbr2odgL4BTfumkraFgHkZzD8hDxzlxrJBaVt5gXSkKVdH1xQdrfNURr7PHJjPWqwxPbCdht2gzvINIAFvQ7qtdngqs1AUxTQbjI/s1600/FreshPaint-5-2015.06.22-09.55.35+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="582" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3-SM6TFgzQQ-49c8w19onhw-97REK5PIj5sBBmqXUbr2odgL4BTfumkraFgHkZzD8hDxzlxrJBaVt5gXSkKVdH1xQdrfNURr7PHJjPWqwxPbCdht2gzvINIAFvQ7qtdngqs1AUxTQbjI/s640/FreshPaint-5-2015.06.22-09.55.35+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Notice that the northbound right "turn" isn't really a turn at all, more of a channelized "veer" that aims high-speed traffic straight at a crosswalk. Moreover, the crosswalk is set back just enough from the intersection to make pedestrians less visible to drivers. This is a space designed for cars, and cars alone. Is it any surprise that people are hurt and killed here?<br />
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The most frustrating part is that there really isn't much purpose to this stretch of roadway, other than moving cars as quickly as possible at the expense of walkability and pedestrian safety--a point neighbors have picked up on. They've asked the City to close down the road and make the entire space into a park. Let's hope the City listens, before someone else is killed at this crossing.</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-19877879771433863712015-06-11T05:00:00.000-07:002015-06-11T05:00:14.602-07:00Walking and Access to Jobs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A newly-released report from the <a href="http://www.cts.umn.edu/">Center for Transportation Studies</a> at the University of Minnesota ranks the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the US based on accessibility to jobs on foot. According to <a href="http://access.umn.edu/research/america/walking/2014/documents/CTS15-03.pdf">Access Across America:Walking 2014</a>, New York has the highest job accessibility by walking. As you can see by the map below, there are hundreds of thousands of jobs within walking distance in Manhattan and the surrounding neighborhoods, but the entire region provides fairly good access to jobs on foot.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNJA-8R3AUL0_zL2HS62f2-ih59QTPzbi4O2kldwNNJaAhtXkHeO1XPqohMaoEnaUQxGu_Y3Tlt3dEuNvqkZU0S4KXqE3nStrcv8qxzqIu_TwXcSp6M7eka3pY6t6-oaDXDvafT45MYY/s1600/Walk+Access+Jobs+NY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNJA-8R3AUL0_zL2HS62f2-ih59QTPzbi4O2kldwNNJaAhtXkHeO1XPqohMaoEnaUQxGu_Y3Tlt3dEuNvqkZU0S4KXqE3nStrcv8qxzqIu_TwXcSp6M7eka3pY6t6-oaDXDvafT45MYY/s640/Walk+Access+Jobs+NY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Compare New York to San Diego, where even the densest neighborhoods can't offer many jobs within easy walking distance.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1eTOHPMtEeYQNpIQ05BlBlk8lAFRPlORRf8TCvjs_LGDt3a-CkRGwJEdh0A2egw_NhxjoMQothnvNW8yOXo0oRPnWwRsnJkLmzjWS7fnZKHd4tLcR4dSLFrLS6uysZL_rHJNSgtybnOw/s1600/Walk+Access+Jobs+San+Diego.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1eTOHPMtEeYQNpIQ05BlBlk8lAFRPlORRf8TCvjs_LGDt3a-CkRGwJEdh0A2egw_NhxjoMQothnvNW8yOXo0oRPnWwRsnJkLmzjWS7fnZKHd4tLcR4dSLFrLS6uysZL_rHJNSgtybnOw/s640/Walk+Access+Jobs+San+Diego.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The study will provide a basis for future work on walking and employment access. According to the authors, <i>"Using this data as a starting point, future reports in the Access Across America series will track the way that accessibility in these metropolitan areas evolves in response to transportation and safety investments and land use decisions." </i>It's important to have a baseline; one the big challenges in pedestrian advocacy is simply a lack of data about walking. With studies like this, we'll have a better understanding of existing conditions for pedestrians, which can help us determine how to effectively improve walking conditions.<br />
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You can find the full ranking of cities in the report, but here's the top ten:<br />
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1. New York<br />
2. San Francisco<br />
3. Los Angeles<br />
4. Chicago<br />
5. Washington<br />
6. Seattle<br />
7. Boston<br />
8. Philadelphia<br />
9. San Jose<br />
10. Denver<br />
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And one last map, for people who continue to insist that LA is only for driving. Take a look at all of that green and yellow...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi20MRJ2VRe-P1-55jmLUqaoRBxiTfUT1Dp0OVvzzZtetb99MMPo1zO2d0d7mC3mE0XsALDocDeDwmZMn72Q-wDC5zIofHB3H1UHojaTwDRk5ZyEied2KJGm-MkRXThE8iAJpq8wmVYcXo/s1600/Walk+Access+Jobs+LA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi20MRJ2VRe-P1-55jmLUqaoRBxiTfUT1Dp0OVvzzZtetb99MMPo1zO2d0d7mC3mE0XsALDocDeDwmZMn72Q-wDC5zIofHB3H1UHojaTwDRk5ZyEied2KJGm-MkRXThE8iAJpq8wmVYcXo/s640/Walk+Access+Jobs+LA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-25182184475678266932015-06-05T09:06:00.001-07:002015-06-05T09:06:58.495-07:00Walking Towards Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVM6jkylcWmvIKF3RtPHEWRGZTvaagApkWfqzApQ1JIeJcrHZS5DIfoMjFQEBy7ZJUm-R9tqGYp6nkZTd5RMvObi3w4aV3NzZbbESqCbyJ_I09Zrxo5cWjLm6ZeH26J6agKeH0BQKA9no/s1600/European.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVM6jkylcWmvIKF3RtPHEWRGZTvaagApkWfqzApQ1JIeJcrHZS5DIfoMjFQEBy7ZJUm-R9tqGYp6nkZTd5RMvObi3w4aV3NzZbbESqCbyJ_I09Zrxo5cWjLm6ZeH26J6agKeH0BQKA9no/s640/European.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo courtesy of </span><a href="http://www.theeuropean-magazine.com/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The European Magazine</span></a></div>
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One cold December day in 1913, a man put on a Santa suit and started America down the path towards criminalizing walking. “Jay-walker!” he taunted, startling people who strolled in the middle of the street. With the help of the auto lobby the term soon became ubiquitous, and suddenly roads were no longer the rightful domain of pedestrians.<br />
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A century later we’re struggling to overcome the problems we created by shifting the focus of public space from people to cars. In 2013, nearly 5,000 pedestrians died in traffic crashes in the US, and 66,000 were injured. Obesity rates in the US have soared in the past two decades, driven by neighborhood designs that discourage physical activity. Air pollution, water pollution, habitat loss, and other environmental troubles are all linked to the predominance of private vehicle travel in America.<br />
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Read the full article in the <a href="http://www.theeuropean-magazine.com/katie-matchett/10213-improving-the-pedestrian-experience">European Magazine here</a>. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-28861094596226631792015-06-04T15:17:00.001-07:002015-06-04T15:18:51.394-07:00The Two-Road System: A New Vision for Sustainable Living<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jxhgUkj2raHziqKT_s_Q9zzliuwOv8VBbNJBDQ4T9MZN_3vrdiUX_jup-6_gpP6wiN7-Zp30ux-Y94mcLnirHG-ECg9kTXnYqy0j7N9sSZQXNWoZ_Zwb3FbPM86jPfKiPj0WTuPh4D0/s1600/Two+road+system.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jxhgUkj2raHziqKT_s_Q9zzliuwOv8VBbNJBDQ4T9MZN_3vrdiUX_jup-6_gpP6wiN7-Zp30ux-Y94mcLnirHG-ECg9kTXnYqy0j7N9sSZQXNWoZ_Zwb3FbPM86jPfKiPj0WTuPh4D0/s640/Two+road+system.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image courtesy of </span><a href="http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/spring-2015/can-we-have-sustainable-transportation-without-making-people-drive-less-or-giving-up-suburban-living/?utm_source=ACCESS+Magazine+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1556343a89-Spring_2015_Email_Only_A_B_Split&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2bb0bf8ccd-1556343a89-287861373"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Access Magazine</span></a></div>
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In the latest issue of Access <a class="url fn" href="http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/author/mark-delucchi/" rel="author" title="Posts by Mark Delucchi"><span style="color: #217fd1;">Mark Delucchi</span></a> and <a class="url fn" href="http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/author/kenneth-kurani/" rel="author" title="Posts by Kenneth Kurani"><span style="color: #217fd1;">Kenneth Kurani</span></a> have figured out a solution to all our transportation problems. Okay, maybe not quite every last one. But, they do offer a radical new design for cities that would lessen the safety and pollution problems created by excess vehicle travel (aka, how we get around most cities today). <br />
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The concept centers around the idea of a <em>two-road network. </em>In two-road cities, one street network would be dedicated to pedestrians, bikes, mopeds, golf carts, and other "low-speed, low-mass vehicles (LLM). The other would serve cars, vans, trucks, and the rest of the "fast, heavy vehicle" inventory (FHV). By separating LLMs from FHVs, walking, biking and other sustainable forms of travel become safer and easier, leading to environmental benefits in the form of reduced vehicle miles traveled. At the same time, the FHV network becomes more efficient, because it isn't required to carry the high volumes of traffic it does today.<br />
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Delucchi and Kurani acknowledge that they aren't the first to consider the idea of separating transportation modes in this way. They point to work by William Garrison at UC Berkeley, but if you <a href="http://www.wherethesidewalkstarts.com/2009/08/where-sidewalk-really-started.html">read this post about the history of the sidewalk</a> you'll see that the idea has been around much longer than that.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3Kxggc3SLo7e9_aKov2PMXHRYs96N0C5VCPxB7jPsjOXr0kbd3CiPzGdB6dpJ_57MFfsBQCgyWVaMsXJUgxOfbi8pIVanURH43MQ2Fy0ATG5pWQPVtf4zf0MdGMM1V4TkBI5YyfW2OA/s1600/Da+Vinci.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3Kxggc3SLo7e9_aKov2PMXHRYs96N0C5VCPxB7jPsjOXr0kbd3CiPzGdB6dpJ_57MFfsBQCgyWVaMsXJUgxOfbi8pIVanURH43MQ2Fy0ATG5pWQPVtf4zf0MdGMM1V4TkBI5YyfW2OA/s400/Da+Vinci.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Leonardo Da Vinci's vision for a two-road system, circa the late 1400s</span></div>
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Nonetheless, the two-road network idea has yet to gain much traction in the real world. Delucchi and Kurani note that some cities have managed to at least partially implement the system (Davis in California, Houten in the Netherlands). But they suggest that future cities could be constructed around this pattern, particularly in developing countries that are expanding quickly into green space. Using the two-road system could help these countries become more sustainable, even as they embrace the automobile. <br />
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As incomes rise in places like India and China, people are driving more and more. This is already creating serious problems for pedestrians in those countries (and everyone else impacted by pollution from driving). A two-road network is one way to reduce pedestrian injuries while potentially lowering pollution from vehicle travel. <br />
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-83953035209866567982015-04-20T05:30:00.000-07:002015-04-20T05:30:01.714-07:00Complete Streets are Complete for Everyone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBsbC0XGiqatIH2_hkyg5Ws9Dd2oMuXEqYwYTN8TA9thO9vykjz_5_Vug3jJ3D3C-LyIGysCxJHd0W3qI4Sf7aphZGd4dsYmmst0Scl6xRTzg70ZRknVJcPPlufJPCC9YUzK531pxd1Fo/s1600/wheelchair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBsbC0XGiqatIH2_hkyg5Ws9Dd2oMuXEqYwYTN8TA9thO9vykjz_5_Vug3jJ3D3C-LyIGysCxJHd0W3qI4Sf7aphZGd4dsYmmst0Scl6xRTzg70ZRknVJcPPlufJPCC9YUzK531pxd1Fo/s1600/wheelchair.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">www.pedbikeimages.org / Jan Moser</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/3/2/complete-street-with-inclusive-design">This new post from Strong Towns</a> offers a helpful take on creating streets that are universally accessible. Written from the perspective of someone who both implements streets for people with disabilities and uses a wheelchair herself, the post from author Heidi Johnson-Wright highlights some of the key elements that make a street "work" for someone in a wheelchair (not to mention those of us who push strollers, etc.). Here are some <br />
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<strong><u>Build wide sidewalks</u></strong><br />
<em>For me, the ideal accessible pedestrian path of travel is as wide as the sidewalks lining the great avenues of New York City.</em> <em>Plenty of room for walkers, wheelers, babies in strollers and then some. Lots of space for me to safely pass around slow walkers when I'm in a hurr</em><em>y.</em><br />
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<strong><u>Keep paving in travel ways smooth</u></strong><br />
<em>...smooth concrete with narrow stress joints works for me. I also love wide, flat flagstones like the ones used throughout Barcelona. I dislike even the smoothest of pavers and despise brickwork. What looks like tiny seams to walkers means major up-and-down bumping for wheelers.</em><br />
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<strong><u>Avoid "cookie-cutter" curb ramps</u></strong><br />
<em>...differences in terrain and limitations of space require different ramp designs in order to be compliant and safe. Level landings at top and bottom are essential...And please: TWO curb ramps per corner instead of a single diagonal ramp.</em><br />
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<strong><u>Keep sidewalks clear of obstructions, even temporary ones</u></strong><br />
<em>Coordination between local public works, transit, utilities, and state DOT is essential to preventing obstructions caused by landscaping, light poles, street signs, signal boxes, bus shelters, bus benches, newspaper boxes, bike racks, etc. Just as bad are sidewalks suddenly blocked off with little or no warning...I mean many months of torn up or obstructed rights of way due to long-term construction projects which provide no alternative, accessible, safe pathway.</em> <br />
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If you take a look at the street from <a href="http://www.wherethesidewalkstarts.com/2015/04/complete-streets-ecuador-style.html">last week's post</a>, you'll see it follows the bulk of the these rules. The sidewalk could be wider, but paving along travel ways is smooth, two curb ramps are in place, and obstructions are pushed to the edge of the sidewalk in the "street furniture zone." </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-11212418732528896102015-04-14T05:30:00.000-07:002015-04-14T05:30:03.654-07:00Complete Streets, Ecuador Style<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I was browsing through some of my non-American transportation pictures when I came across this photo of an amazing street in Baños in Ecuador. Isn't it great? <br />
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But before I break down the details of what makes this street so awesome, a note on why I was looking at streets in Ecuador in the first place: So often when we point to examples of the best <em>complete streets</em>, we're showing places in affluent (read: white) neighborhoods in Europe or the US. At the same time, we're often working in neighborhoods that don't exactly share those demographics. It's worth noting that Copenhagen and San Francisco don't have the monopoly on walkability. <br />
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For the record, I'm just as guilty as the next planner of doing this-- thus my perusal of South American streetscapes. Which brings us back to the street above. First, let's look at land use: two stories of residential over street-level storefronts. This keeps the density relatively high while maintaining a "human scale:" the buildings are probably about 35 feet high and are proportionate to the width of the street. The variety of commercial uses on the ground floor serve residents in the neighborhood, making it easier to accomplish daily errands without driving. <br />
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About those commercial uses--notice how they're set up with outdoor displays, café seating, and windows to engage people walking down the street. You can see at a glance that this street would be interesting to explore. Importantly, those outdoor displays and café tables aren't blocking the sidewalk, and neither are the planters and benches on the other side of the travel way. I especially like how there are decorative tiles in the street furniture zone of the sidewalk, but not in the pedestrian pathway. Decorative paving looks great, but it can be tricky to navigate (e.g., try walking on cobblestones in heels). <br />
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Along those lines, you can see that at each corner the sidewalks have two curb ramps, one for each crossing. If you spend much time looking at curb ramps in cities around here (wait, is that just me?), you'll find that they're often done on the cheap, with one ramp at the point of the corner to serve both crossings. This spits the user out into the center of the intersection, forcing them to shimmy back over to the crosswalk--only to repeat the same thing on the other side of the street. Yet one more subtle way that pedestrians are told that their convenience isn't a priority...<br />
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Finally, notice how narrow the roadway is. On this street, the space devoted to vehicles isn't even a third of what is given over to pedestrians. There's no on-street parking, and it's a one-way street. <a href="http://www.cbs8.com/story/28639174/bike-lane-plan-threatens-prime-hillcrest-parking">Business owners often balk at implementing these types of changes</a>, arguing that losing that on-street parking will destroy their businesses. What do you think, do those businesses look like they're suffering?<br />
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My favorite part of the picture is how the two police officers are just hanging out in the middle of the street. Clearly this is a place where cars have to drive slowly enough that it's possible to have a conversation (or take a picture) in the center of the road without having to fear for your life. I'd love more streets like this in our country. <br />
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-6215144888042992652015-04-10T09:54:00.003-07:002015-04-22T13:42:26.311-07:00How 15 mph Makes a Difference<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've <a href="http://www.wherethesidewalkstarts.com/2014/02/resources-to-reduce-traffic-speeds-in.html">written before </a>about how critical slower speeds are to pedestrian safety, and this week <a href="http://streets.mn/2015/04/02/the-critical-ten/">streets.mn</a> has a great post that pulls together a lot of important information about vehicle speed and safety. I especially liked this graphic that shows the difference between what a driver traveling at 30 mph sees vs what a driver traveling at 15 mph sees.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVa58ye4_d9tRw2hD8jvaKa9k-UqGsEtUSFeWkgL5dRphY1GmTjM35vLsfXprfAAQx55plLpXjhrMH4fa8XF6pOb9xXvzH-8Mm6Ik4oRtBKFZ-veLXKIakCqABm94NVwytk7H4z9yAQ5Y/s1600/speed-visual-focus-diagram-426x500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVa58ye4_d9tRw2hD8jvaKa9k-UqGsEtUSFeWkgL5dRphY1GmTjM35vLsfXprfAAQx55plLpXjhrMH4fa8XF6pOb9xXvzH-8Mm6Ik4oRtBKFZ-veLXKIakCqABm94NVwytk7H4z9yAQ5Y/s1600/speed-visual-focus-diagram-426x500.jpg" height="640" width="544" /></a></div>
Notice how all the pedestrians on the sidewalk disappear at the higher speed. As Bill Lindeke writes in the post,<br />
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<i>"<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22.5px;">If you look at the average speed of traffic on a urban commercial streets, there are a lot of things that begin to change when you slow down cars from the 30 to 35 mile per hour range into the 20 to 25 mile per hour range. Most importantly, perception, reaction time, and crash outcomes are far better at 20 than at 30 mph, while traffic flow doesn’t seem to change very much."</span></i></blockquote>
Even thought risk of death and injury is dramatically higher when vehicle speeds exceed 20 mph, most local roads (especially older ones like those in my neighborhood) are designed to encourage much greater speeds. Until we address this problem (admittedly a challenge, given the cost of retrofitting roads to narrow them) speeding and the dangers it presents will continue to be a problem for pedestrians. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-37833953545434970962015-04-03T05:30:00.000-07:002015-04-03T05:30:02.091-07:00Lawsuit forces LA to maybe do something about its sidewalk problem<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhi5bfhkNyr8QqE2tfV6IesxeqDxJZmSn-FcJyDlo4insmpI9fj6qiZd8zAIhjR9Q4UD5JBFwth6JKpDPAOBPAkW6Vz1y9mqNS4TPLns-KOxinYTLjQD7F1YnzyQl498YXCyVcl_1n6I/s1600/P1090398.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhi5bfhkNyr8QqE2tfV6IesxeqDxJZmSn-FcJyDlo4insmpI9fj6qiZd8zAIhjR9Q4UD5JBFwth6JKpDPAOBPAkW6Vz1y9mqNS4TPLns-KOxinYTLjQD7F1YnzyQl498YXCyVcl_1n6I/s1600/P1090398.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
Let's begin with one of my favorite (I should say least favorite) pictures of a sidewalk in the neighborhood where I used to live, deep in LA's San Fernando Valley. No, this is not a picture of a dirt path next to a road where there should be a sidewalk. There is an <u><em>actual sidewalk</em></u> underneath all that dirt. If you squint you can see a little piece of it at the bottom of the embankment in the middle of the picture. <br />
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Lest you think this is unusual, here's another:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOZrPl912PdLshKa01sx3WNXMpNrlakvWS_uvUPPnfakXPYLzifCEcb-OouPfIllaTTRf1NttAcYT3c_T8FyWKC7k7duSKbKYzNJNIx6RMOyQM99NtCWHDfrGP1k0Ls-r6xAoWRinCtLM/s1600/P1090423.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOZrPl912PdLshKa01sx3WNXMpNrlakvWS_uvUPPnfakXPYLzifCEcb-OouPfIllaTTRf1NttAcYT3c_T8FyWKC7k7duSKbKYzNJNIx6RMOyQM99NtCWHDfrGP1k0Ls-r6xAoWRinCtLM/s1600/P1090423.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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I probably have a few hundred similar shots, just from the area right around my house. And I lived in a "nice" part of the city. </div>
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Given that this is the typical state of LA's sidewalks, it should come as a surprise to no one that an ADA lawsuit against the City has resulted in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lawsuit-broken-sidewalks-20150331-story.html#page=1">what's described as "the biggest agreement of its kind in US history."</a> The deal has yet to be finalized, but as part of the settlement the City will pay $1.3 billion to fix problems like the ones shown above. </div>
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That sounds pretty great, and is definitely a win for advocates pushing for improved mobility for people with disabilities (not to mention the rest of us who'd like to be able to use our sidewalks safely). But...let's not get too excited. First of all, the $1.3 billion in spending is over 30 years. In other words, it's possible that my grandkids could still be walking on the same decrepit sidewalks I walked on when I lived in LA--only 30 years worse for the wear. </div>
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Furthermore, that $1.3 billion only covers the estimated cost of current repairs (<a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0819-shoup-los-angeles-sidewalks-20140819-story.html">more or less</a>) to the 40 percent or so of sidewalks that need fixing today. That doesn't leave anything for all the sidewalk problems that are sure to crop up between now and 2045. </div>
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Finally, as <a href="http://la.streetsblog.org/2015/04/02/l-a-finally-shamed-into-doing-something-about-decrepit-sidewalks/">Streetsblog LA rightly points out</a>, telling the City to spend the money isn't the same as the City actually spending it. That $1.3 billion has to come from somewhere, and right now it isn't clear where that would be. </div>
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ADA lawsuits have been used elsewhere to force action on sidewalk improvements (Sacramento, Chicago), and they can be effective in getting a city to address problems like obstructions or lack of maintenance. Nonetheless, pedestrian advocates should still be pushing for municipalities to routinely include adequate funding for sidewalk repair in their transportation budgets. It shouldn't take a lawsuit to ensure that sidewalks are well-maintained and easy for everyone to navigate. </div>
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Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-46732499873652110082015-03-30T05:30:00.000-07:002015-03-30T05:30:02.315-07:00The Paradox of the Cul-de-Sac<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj63bUtGFZS5QxYan3ccO6tFG2ekoADkjucVj2BdOGflDBDeQ-_wAG_A_BIMYGl71IypBhXXbgaZrMTxirJDUcLmJ7TmJxsLpr2ilR_mKI7BgSLA5z6fu2biwizSzbPUh_jWtDlSbB7KZc/s1600/Cul-de-sac80020_copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj63bUtGFZS5QxYan3ccO6tFG2ekoADkjucVj2BdOGflDBDeQ-_wAG_A_BIMYGl71IypBhXXbgaZrMTxirJDUcLmJ7TmJxsLpr2ilR_mKI7BgSLA5z6fu2biwizSzbPUh_jWtDlSbB7KZc/s1600/Cul-de-sac80020_copy.jpg" height="452" width="640" /></a></div>
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Last week I posted <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/blame-the-city/375888/">this article from The Atlantic</a> about how urban design--specifically long blocks and meandering street patterns--can lead to less walking and poorer health for residents. The cul-de-sac in particular <a href="http://www.citylab.com/design/2011/09/street-grids/124/">gets a bad rap,</a> a feature that leads to homes that are literally and figuratively cut off from the surrounding environment. So reviled is the cul-de-sac that they are often banned, or at least discouraged, in newer planning codes. I've recommended such code language myself.<br />
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But I have a confession to make: I live on a cul-de-sac.<br />
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Actually, here's the real confession: I <em>love</em> living on a cul-de-sac. <br />
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This sits uneasily with me, given my extensive knowledge of the reasons I shouldn't like cul-de-sacs. I know my cul-de-sac interrupts a grid network that's clearly desirable, given the number of people who hop the neighbors fence at the end of the cul-de-sac. I realize that I have to travel an extra three blocks every time I leave my house to go to the grocery store, and that I'm more likely to drive because of those extra blocks (well, <em>I'm</em> probably not more likely to drive, but my neighbors might be). <br />
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Even so, I love the fact that there is (seemingly) less traffic on my street. I love that my kids can play soccer in the space in front of my house, and I love that our neighborhood can do things like, say, shut down the street with orange cones and set up an obstacle course for toddlers as part of an annual block party without getting grief from the authorities or needing a street closure permit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmgE2uD0XP9bHi14YcycKcSNHyEqLy_xy_puV4qs0vVEYEjdCIEiKSTMxG4SoZt4dyFOR3pwvmBMT6kar_tekNGM3x8M4FCSVSAnokZyeSeW5Zqqn-m3FORh6mxQrx2A6-9Exg4-yVO9w/s1600/Cul+de+sac.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmgE2uD0XP9bHi14YcycKcSNHyEqLy_xy_puV4qs0vVEYEjdCIEiKSTMxG4SoZt4dyFOR3pwvmBMT6kar_tekNGM3x8M4FCSVSAnokZyeSeW5Zqqn-m3FORh6mxQrx2A6-9Exg4-yVO9w/s1600/Cul+de+sac.JPG" height="406" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a name='more'></a>I was struggling to reconcile this cul-de-sac love with my seemingly contradictory love of walkability, until it hit me. It's not the cul-de-sac that I love, it's the fact that it allows me and my neighbors to reclaim street space for <em>people. </em>Our street isn't just for moving traffic, it's for playing baseball, blowing bubbles, and practicing skateboard tricks. It's for interacting with the people next door, creating the social connections that are as critical for good health as exercise. <br />
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Most of the streets in our community aren't cul-de-sacs. Most of them aren't for people, either. They're too wide, they lack trees and landscaping, they don't have well-maintained sidewalks or bike lanes. Is it any surprise that people prefer not to live on these streets? Planners can ban cul-de-sacs all they want, but until we can make our roadways people-friendly, residents will still want to live on cul-de-sacs. Even me. </div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-69463556366436681622015-03-26T05:00:00.000-07:002015-03-27T09:30:00.505-07:00Cool Ped Stuff #31: Let's Walk To...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I can publish a blog post, but that's about as fancy as my technical web skills get. </div>
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Fortunately, there are a slew of people out there who are way better at this stuff, and they're using their skills to figure out new and creative ways to use all the neighborhood-level data about land use and transportation that's becoming more accessible every day. </div>
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<a href="http://www.letswalkto.com/">Let'sWalkTo</a> a fun site that let's users search for bars, restaurants and entertainment (you know, the essentials)--plus some other key amenities--by walking time. The goal is to facilitate walking and make it easier for people to get out and explore new locations on foot. Here's shot of what the site looks like in my neighborhood:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjQghAk-2qNfbAJ9OTfP4ODOSk_0ZfRfDFnE3xz1hxS7dt329SCBi1Ot00Bu-8AKBCBno8OM79XXoT_AQVb7o4jQuRgxI1E89sVU3RMROJUdNtwo29ChQshLPzi53yPNnrYFB2bFrFQjY/s1600/Screenshot+(5).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjQghAk-2qNfbAJ9OTfP4ODOSk_0ZfRfDFnE3xz1hxS7dt329SCBi1Ot00Bu-8AKBCBno8OM79XXoT_AQVb7o4jQuRgxI1E89sVU3RMROJUdNtwo29ChQshLPzi53yPNnrYFB2bFrFQjY/s1600/Screenshot+(5).png" height="456" width="640" /></a></div>
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I don't really need to be convinced to walk places in my own community (unless it's raining. Californians are weird that way), but I could see myself relying on this site a bunch when I'm in a new neighborhood or a city I'm not familiar with. The site is still pretty new, so try it out and send along any suggestions for improvements.</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3691443357565660405.post-52143204156739087612015-03-18T14:33:00.003-07:002015-03-18T14:33:36.707-07:00NHTSA Pedestrian Safety Facts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAFcE28VMYgm3NFYZz840qmWxRYPVhQ2wTl5VZs9-PXOX59WTs0dMuLwt7Ojdl6D3fRqAvhbi6bXlu1_5AFMpr_9EDr28OfG-sUS204Wj23QOdrFYrRNP2As4hSiMsy3RrAHsP1X4SiiY/s1600/Watch+for+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAFcE28VMYgm3NFYZz840qmWxRYPVhQ2wTl5VZs9-PXOX59WTs0dMuLwt7Ojdl6D3fRqAvhbi6bXlu1_5AFMpr_9EDr28OfG-sUS204Wj23QOdrFYrRNP2As4hSiMsy3RrAHsP1X4SiiY/s1600/Watch+for+me.jpg" height="324" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo courtesy of </span><a href="http://www.watchformenc.org/"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">www.watchformenc.org</span></a></div>
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is out with its annual report on pedestrian safety (or rather, lack thereof), and has put together a helpful fact sheet that outlines some of the key findings from its evaluation of traffic crashes involving pedestrians in 2013. <br />
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There aren't many big surprises (children and seniors are disproportionately hurt or killed while walking, alcohol plays a role in many pedestrian crashes, more people are hit at night), but a couple things struck me:<br />
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<li>Over two-thirds of pedestrian fatalities were men. It's hard to say why this is. I suspect one reason is that men walk more at night, whereas many women wouldn't feel safe doing so. Irony.</li>
<li>California, Texas and Florida have the most pedestrian fatalities. They also have the most people, so that's not especially surprising. On the other hand, those are all states with large Hispanic populations, who tend to walk more--and thus run more risk of being hit by cars (especially if they're living in poorer neighborhoods without good pedestrian infrastructure). </li>
<li> Nearly 70 percent of fatalities happened at "non-intersections." There are still many people who would argue that this means pedestrians were "jaywalking"--and thus at least partially culpable for the crash. Hopefully we're moving toward a time when we recognize that poor street design, not people asserting their rights to use public space, is the real problem. </li>
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You can read through the <a href="http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812124.pdf">full fact sheet here</a>.</div>
Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15536352807462056872noreply@blogger.com2