This week on foot

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This week has been full of debate on the red light camera issue. As you know, Two L.A. councilmen want to hold off ending red-light camera program--but many Angelenos would like to see the program disappear, like Jay Beeber: Folk Hero Stops L.A.'s Red Light Cameras. Even the Freakonomics blog has weighed in, and it's Seeing Red: Why L.A. Needs to Keep its Traffic Light Cameras. The City Council Delays Vote on Red Light Camera Until Tuesday, so it looks like we'll be hearing more about this issue for at least another couple days.

And why do we want those cameras? Two words: pedestrian safety. We're certainly missing it here in Southern California, where just this week there was a Pedestrian killed in Hollywood, and in SAN MARCOS: Pedestrian hit by vehicle, dies. Further east a Pedestrian killed by Metrolink train in Palmdale (okay, probably a camera couldn't have stopped that one, but it's still a sad statement about the dangers pedestrians face.)

Ironically, just as many Angelenos are arguing over red light cameras, the LA Times reports that Crosswalks are increasingly deadly for the elderly within the region. It just goes to show that Walkability’ key to an age-friendly city.
Of course, elsewhere in the country things are a little brighter. Traffic, pedestrian deaths in Utah trending toward new low in 2011; safety efforts credited. Meanwhile, In Washington County, momentum grows for adding bicyclists, pedestrians into transportation system, while an Oregon Bill clarifies traffic stops for pedestrians and in Chicago Diagonal crossings, fewer right on reds could give pedestrians a leg up.

But that doesn't mean everyone out there is supporting pedestrians. In Canada, a Saskatoon pedestrian hit by car to be ticketed, while in Nogales a Pedestrian circulation study sparks debate over priorities. Seems to me that there isn't much to debate when you consider the Lost Value from Wide Streets...but I guess I'm a little biased.

Vote Delayed on Red Light Cameras

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LA city councilmembers have delayed their vote on the City's red light camera program until next Tuesday to allow more of the council to attend the meeting and vote on the issue. While not a "win," this does indicate that the council is taking the issue seriously --and it gives you more time to contact your councilmember to encourage them to vote in support of the program. In partciular, Paul Koretz, Bill Rosendahl, and my own rep Dennis Zine have indicated their opposition to continuing the program. Tony Cardenas and Bernard C. Parks made the motion to extend the program while additional evaluation is performed.

You can sign a petition in support of the RLC program by clicking here (full disclosure: the petition is sponsored by the Traffic Safety Coaltion. While the coalation itself is a non-profit made up of a diverse group of traffic safety advocates, they do receive their funding from RLC companies.) Alternatively, you can contact your councilmember directly (info on the City's website here)--or even better, do both!

Red Light Cameras

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Perhaps you've been following the debate over the City of Los Angeles' abrupt move to consider eliminating its red light photo enforcement program in the LA Times or Streetsblog. For reasons I'll discuss in a moment, I believe this is dangerous and shortsighted on the part of the City, and I hope you'll join me in speaking out in support of red light cameras ASAP (the City Council will take this issue up in the next few days).

The Traffic Safety Coalition has already put together a petition for you to sign in support of the cameras, conveniently saving me the effort of having to create one myself. Please take a moment to sign here--I promise it won't take more than a minute, and it will help us send the right message to the City Council before it's too late. Do it now, I'll wait.

Finished? Okay, let's talk a little more about the issue of red light cameras in LA. As you're surely aware, red light cameras (aka RLCs) spark some serious, and often misinformed, vitriol. Setting aside the more ludicrous arguments against the cameras (sorry, nothing in the US constitution protects your "right" to run a red light), there are legitimate questions regarding their effectiveness. Here are a few of the latest studies on the subject:

• Safety Evaluation of Red-Light Cameras
• An evaluation of the effectiveness of red- light cameras at signalized intersections
• The effectiveness of red-light cameras: a meta-analysis of the evaluation studies

Each shows that there are indeed reductions in crashes at intersections where RLCs are installed, though the studies acknowledge that in some cases the total reduction is diminished due to increases in particular types of collisions.

This Week on Foot

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This week begins with some outrageous decisions from our legal system. First, there's No jail time for driver who killed pedestrian in a crosswalk because he was paying more attention to his text messages than the road in front of him. Then, the Kenosha DA won't charge driver in 2010 pedestrian death in Wisconsin, because the pedestrian was walking down the wrong side of the road at dusk in dark clothing--which apparently is a greater crime than drinking and getting behind the wheel, as the driver in this case did.

And as if a biased legal system wasn't enough, pedestrians still have to deal with the problem of poor pedestrian design, as pointed out to us this week by Raise the Hammer with thisWalkability Fail Near St. Joseph's Hospital and this Walkability Fail At Aberdeen and Dundurn.

Fortunately there are some lawmakers who'd like to make things easier for pedestrians--or at least to give local jurisdictions more control over speed limits (and thus, more ability to lower them). As Streetsblog reports this week the Newest Attempt to Give Cities Power Over Speed Limits Gains Ground in Sacramento . But at the same time local leaders are considering making things more dangerous for pedestrians by removing red light cameras here in LA. It's a shame that L.A. traffic cameras may get the red light, since they can discourage the kinds of bad driving (e.g. illegal right turns on red) that are particularly dangerous to pedestrians.

And it is dangerous out there for pedestrians. This week there was a Man hit by minivan crossing Oxnard street , while across the country In Lower Hudson Valley, elderly pedestrians more likely to be hit (and also more likely to die from their injuries). Perhaps the Hudson Valley is facing some of the same problems as Corpus Christi, where Downtown Crosswalks Prove Too Speedy For Pedestrians: 13 Seconds Just Isn't Enough
But it's not all bad news out there. In New York,  Yeshiva University proposes new pedestrian plaza (because Public plazas are good for the city). And across the ocean Street Delivery gives the city back to pedestrians for sixth time in Romania. For those of you interested in doing the same thing, this week the Atlantic teaches you How to Turn a Parking Lot Into an Ideal Green Community.

Finally, this week we have news that its not just pedestrians who are benefiting from the pedestrian detection technology that's being installed in new vehicle models: Volvo Using Pedestrian Detection System To Spot Animals, Too.

Improving Pedestrian Design

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A couple resources for planners and engineers hoping to improve roadway design to better accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists:

First, from the Journal of the American Planning Association, Designing for the Safety of Pedestrians, Cyclists, and Motorists in Urban Environments. In this article, the authors probe at one of the underlying premises that leads to today's emphasis on "vehicle-oriented" roadway design: wide roads are safe roads. Opening with this disturbing quote, "...every effort should be made to use as high a design speed as practical in the interests of safety," from the 2004 AASHTO "green book" (one of the primary guides for American roadway design), the article proceeds to debunk the theory that vehicle crashes are the result of random error and thus roads should be designed to be as forgiving (read: fast) as possible. Obviously such an attitude presents some concerns for vulnerable road users like pedestrians, who are much more likely to be killed or injured on high-speed roads than those where supposedly "dangerous" speed treatments are in place.

While the JAPA article explains why the old theories of roadway design should be thrown out, that doesn't solve the problem of what to do with all the high-speed, pedestrian-unfriendly roadways that have already been built. Enter Caltrans, and its newest complete streets resource, Complete Intersections: a Guide to Reconstructing Intersections and Interchanges for Bicycles and Pedestrians. In it, Caltrans walks through (sorry, the ped puns are hard to avoid) appropriate treatments for each type of intersection, including three- and four-leg intersections, as well as more unique situations like mid block crossings and roundabouts. I particularly appreciate the "Guiding Principles" that Caltrans lays out for intersection design. So often in the past these appear to have been missing from the engineering thought process. Hopefully the new guidance from Caltrans marks a change for the better:

• Observe (watch how the intersection is currently used)
• Pedestrians and bicyclists will be there (people will walk, regardless of whether or not an engineer thinks walking is unsafe at a particular location)
• Maintain and improve (instead of removing pedestrian facilities)
• Tee it up (to 90 degrees, which forces motorists to make slower turns at intersections)
• One decision at a time (don't force people to worry about too many things at once)
• Slow it down
• Shorten crossings
• Improve visibility
• Clarify the right-of-way (because not everyone has memorized the vehicle code like some of us have)
• Keep it direct (pedestrians won't walk out of their way to get somewhere)
• Light at night
• Access for all (including young and old pedestrians, and people with disabilities)