Dallas is all about the hike-n-bike these days, what with Complete Streets and Better Blocks and Bike Plans and Pedestrian Bridges and whatever else will help us ease on down, ease on down the road. Good thing too, since walking 'round Dallas -- and Fort Worth and Arlington -- can be dangerous. That's according to D.C.-based Transportation for America, which yesterday released its Dangerous by Design 2011 annual report, which, using stats provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting
System, tallies up the number of pedestrian deaths between 2000 and 2009 and ranks the D-FW-A 10th among big metros with 942 killed during that period. That's actually the third-highest total in the Top 10, behind the Miami and Houston areas, but given the low number of average annual pedestrian deaths per 100,000 -- 1.6 -- we rate the 10 spot.
Says the report, "The decades-long neglect of pedestrian safety in the design and use of American streets is exacting a heavy toll on our lives," and in supplemental material provided with the report, Transportation for America urges the feds to do something about pedestrian deaths -- like, say, adopt a national Complete Streets policy, which is exactly what Sen. Tom Harkin called for yesterday when introducing the Complete Streets Act of 2011.
Here's the Texas breakdown from Transportation for America, which notes that:
Between 2000 and 2009, 4,212 people were killed while walking in Texas. This is a share of the more than 47,700 Americans who died on our streets and roads, whether walking to school, approaching a bus stop, or strolling to the grocery store. Children, older Americans, and racial and ethnic minorities were killed in disproportionate numbers. An overwhelming proportion of these deaths share a common thread: they occurred along "arterial" roadways that were dangerous by design, streets engineered for speeding cars with little or no provision for people on foot, in wheelchairs or on bicycles.And here's the interactive map that shows exactly where and when those deaths in and around Dallas occurred.
