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The authors (and dare we say, the readers) of this web site often get pretty exercised over pedestrian and cyclist safety issues, especially when so many of these kinds of accidents seem to involve city bus drivers. But a new study of relative pedestrian safety finds that D.C. is actually one of the safer cities in the country to be traveling through without an automobile. According to Transportation for America, a transportation advocacy group, walking in Washington is less dangerous than in 31 other metro areas in the U.S.
The rankings (you can read the whole report here) make some basic sense: at the top half of the list are cities like Orlando, Houston, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix – cities that were built to a car scale, where hardly anyone walks. East Coast cities that were designed before the automobile, like D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston, are all in the bottom half of the list. D.C. did come in at #32, however, making it ranked as somewhat less safe than most other eastern U.S. cities. The only other East Coast city that ranked worse than D.C. was Baltimore, coming at #29.
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This is slowly becoming this blog's equivalent to "First post!"
Ethereal ghost feet to be exact! Legba Carrefour has pedestrian copycat!
Speaking of Legba, what happened with the ghost bikes? I thought he vowed to bring them back once he got over his cold or whatever. Maybe he should start small with some white-painted ghost shoes. Don't dead jaywalkers deserve street shrines, too?
Maybe he got the message? Nahhhh, his ego probably found other ways to feed itself.
2 near misses in less than 12 hours, one of which involving me and (I know this may surprise you) a Metro bus! Yeah, haven't heard that one before. If it could be worse I don't want to see it.
In all fairness, near misses are not misses. They're intentional close calls, intended to teach the pedestrian a lesson.
Personally, I'm all about the jaywalking, and support D.C.'s grassroots gonzo pedestrian take back the streets critical mass movement that's been going on for the past 100 years or so. If EVERYONE just walks into the street, cars/buses/etc. will be forced to cope or stay out of the city. And the negatives of that are... what?
I'm half kidding, but I'm half serious too. The West Side Highway in Manhattan... the Embarcadero Freeway in San Fran, time and time again we see that if you remove roads in cities, if you make driving in the city more difficult, the quality of life improves for everyone... except for that *sshole in a car.
gotta pass this along to richard layman, if he hasn't seen the study already...
Do deer as pedestrians? I almost hit one the size of a prized thoroughbred last night.
It seems like a lot of the coverage on this study looks at demographic and urban planning factors here.....but my anecdotal experience is that there is a huge degree of people in DC and environs just crossing the street in the middle, against the light, through traffic, with maybe an upheld hand as their only protection.
If you make it all the way up 14th St NW after 6 PM on a weekend without seriously injuring at least 2 people, you're a better man than I.
Sure, it's safe to be a pedestrian... if you don't get shot.
I wonder how the person who was laying motionless in the street in Dupont Circle during last night's rush hour feels about pedestrian safety.
Did anyone else see that? Or know what happened? Emergency crews were already approaching the scene and a large crowd of gawkers had assembled so I didn't stick around, but it was pretty upsetting.
I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure the police gave him a ticket for jaylaying.
It's like the dude I saw a week or two back, walking in the middle of the Whitehurst freeway (which has no shoulders, just concrete walls and lanes where people regularly do 50mph outside of rush hour) in the dark.
I'm quite sympathetic to the plight of pedestrians, as my feet and transit are my primary mode of transportation... but come on, you couldn't find some other route (as in, K street, right below the Whitehurst) to get where you were going??
What about motorist safety? Or more to the point, motorcar safety? Do you have any idea how much it costs to take the dent caused by the ass of an oblivious and self-entitled pedestrian out of a hood? More than a jar of Grey Poupon, I tell you.
Well, it's still cheaper in DC than Houston or Atlanta, where those massively obese asses make for a much larger dent.
luckily my car is red so I don't have to wash the blood off