We write lots about pedestrian security right here, and it’s not as a result of we hate vehicles. It’s as a result of we usually imagine that killing individuals is dangerous, and it doesn’t in some way develop into much less dangerous should you kill somebody together with your automobile as an alternative of a gun. Additionally, we need to stay in a world the place you’ll be able to cross the road with out having to fret that you just’re going to die.

Sadly, we stay within the U.S., a rustic that doesn’t care how many individuals drivers kill yearly, and any time somebody will get hit, the blame is inevitably shifted away from the motive force as a result of how dare somebody be exterior of a automobile in a spot the place a driver may have the ability to hit them. Add in our love of huge vans and SUVs, and it’s no marvel that street deaths on this nation proceed to worsen yearly.

And sure, the kind of automobiles on the street completely issues. It’s going to harm should you get hit by a Corvette doing 35 mph, however it’s going to harm a complete lot extra should you get hit by a Ram TRX going the identical velocity. Moreover, there’s little or no probability that you just’ll be thrown underneath the Corvette when it hits you, whereas, with the TRX, there’s a great probability you’ll get thrown to the grown and run over.

However how can we realistically begin turning issues round? It might be nice to have the ability to magically rework each U.S. city and metropolis right into a extremely walkable space with nice bike infrastructure and no must drive, however very like the second-generation Tesla Roadster, magic isn’t actual. Are we simply caught with an increasing number of individuals dying within the streets yearly? Not essentially.

Just lately, Ars Technica printed an article by Kevin J. Krizek, a professor of sustainable planning and concrete design on the College of Colorado, targeted on answering precisely that query. One essential level is that pedestrian-friendly, well-designed cities resembling Amsterdam and Copenhagen haven’t all the time been that method simply because they’re outdated. They responded to grassroots actions that pressured metropolis officers to make adjustments for the higher. Right now, many areas of these cities look nothing like they did within the Nineteen Seventies.

Giant-scale change is troublesome and takes time, however there are additionally quite a lot of issues that native governments can do to discourage the usage of large automobiles and promote pedestrian security:

• Creating prioritized parking areas nearer to shops for all types of mobility which might be slim or lower than 8 toes (2.5 meters) lengthy.
• Utilizing posts or bollards, which could be detachable, to restrict car entry to business areas and neighborhoods the place pedestrians, bikes, and smaller vehicles get precedence.
• Radically narrowing journey lanes on streets to power site visitors to decelerate and release house for wider sidewalks and bike lanes.
• Limiting or ending car entry to streets close to colleges and economically vibrant business districts, both completely or at high-use occasions of day.

Would such adjustments make issues much less handy for drivers? Positive. However you already know what’s much more inconvenient? Getting hit by a automobile simply since you dared to cross the road to get to a restaurant.

There’s much more to the article, and we extremely suggest you try the remainder of it right here.