Pedestrian Safety

Public Enemy #1 Last week, Curbed LA reported that the LAPD was busy over-enforcing traffic safety laws in Koreatown by ticketing people who were crossing the street, even some who were doing so legally. While most commentors shared my sense of outrage, there were of course a select few who were thrilled that the police … Continued

Stories of big accidents were big news in Los Angeles the past several days. Gold Line and Metrolink trains “went boom” before the weekend started. Over the weekend, a mid-air collision between two small planes killed several people, including one on the ground. This morning, a big-rig flipped on the 101. But what’s just as … Continued

On Friday, a commenter to It's Not Getting Safer Out There challenged me to do more research to see how those safety stats look when you compare them to VMT, or population growth. It was difficult to get numbers for all of the years, and get them from the same source, so let me just say this. He's right at least on this much: there is more VMT for biking and driving in LA now than in 2000 and there's more people. Taken in that light, yes. Based on the numbers, each individual person is safer on the road than they are in 2000 in LA.

With the weather outside being about as bad as it gets here in LA, you can bet that somewhere tonight (or perhaps already) at least one cyclist or pedestrian will be killed by unsafe driving. A look at the stats for bike and pedestrian fatalities in LA and Orange counties show almost no improvement since the turn of the century. One could argue that because the stats don't show an improvement in safety for cyclists and pedestrians that the lack of improvement is a black mark for the city and Orange County.

2000 2006

It isn’t easy to try to analyze a Regional Transportation Plan without a close examination of the project list (which isn’t available yet) but a first read of the Southern California Association of Governments' RTP shows an agency at least somewhat committed to improving lives for those that don’t take their care everywhere. There will be much more coverage of this report here in the coming weeks, but first lets look at the bike/ped section.

A story on Streetsblog yesterday covered a report by the reform group Transportation Alternatives showing what many have already guessed. Because of the size of many "urban boulevards" and the short cross time granted, most urban roads are discriminatory to elderly pedestrians.

This weekend the AP reported on a not-very well known stastical reality: ending daylight savings time is a killer for pedestrians.

A pre-Halloween note at streetsblog last week had a list of safety tips prepared by NYCDOT for costumed kiddees and drivers on the holiday. Curiosity raised, I checked to see if LADOT had a similar list. If they do, I can't find it anywhere...maybe because I'm planning on going as Clark Kent for the second straight year, they decided to hide it from me as a form of protest of my unoriginality.