Pedestrians at the complex intersection of 71st, Broadway and Amsterdam enjoy shorter crossing distances and more space at the northern end of the intersection, next to a subway entrance. Photos: Noah Kazis

DOT has largely completed an overhaul of the complicated intersection of Broadway, Amsterdam and 71st Street, a year after presenting the plan to Community Board 7 (hat tip to the West Side Rag, which noted the new infrastructure last Thursday).

Dubbed the “bowtie of death” by Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, who pressed DOT to take action last August and again this July, the intersection has long been one of the most dangerous places in Manhattan for pedestrians. According to Stringer’s office, there have been 34 traffic crashes here in the last two years.

Installation of the safety improvements began this August. Now pedestrians should have a far easier time making it across the tangle of streets. Using planters, granite blocks, and new surfacing flush with the roadbed, DOT has expanded sidewalks and medians, cutting crossing distances significantly. Abundant new crosswalks allow people to walk safely and legally where they’d previously been taking shortcuts without walk signals or a designated right-of-way. Along two blocks of Broadway, one southbound travel lane was removed to help calm traffic.

More pictures of the new safety features below the fold:

A number of new crosswalks make it easy, safe, and legal to cross the complex intersection in any direction. Before, pedestrians frequently cut from island to island without any official routes or signals for walking.

Looking south from the former "bowtie of death," new pedestrian space juts into Broadway on both sides of the intersection. On the left side of Broadway, the traffic lane was removed along this block.

After a dozen years of waiting, what's a couple more, give or take? Photo: Brad Aaron

It was supposed to happen circa 2005. Then in 2009. Now the city says the restoration of a crumbling block-long staircase that serves as a pedestrian-only street in Inwood will be finished by summer 2013.

The 215th Step-Street connects Broadway to residential blocks at Inwood’s northern end. For years its cracked stairs and broken lamps have posed a hazard — neighborhood residents have been asking the city to rebuild it since at least 1999. In 2007 a woman tripped on a hole in the stairs, cutting her legs and face, prompting renewed calls for action.

In 2008, DOT officials and then-Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat announced that a reconstruction project would be completed the following year. Instead, in the summer of 2009 the city backed off its pledge.

Now the Department of Design and Construction says plans are moving forward.

“The project is in Final Design and that phase is scheduled to be completed by July 2012,” a DDC spokesperson told Streetsblog. “The project is scheduled to begin construction in FY 13.”

While the news is promising, Inwoodites could be forgiven for not holding their breath.

City officials showed Community Board 5 renderings of the design for the permanent plaza at Times Square last night. Image: NYC DOT

By taking out a troublesome diagonal from the Manhattan grid, the Green Light for Midtown program improved street safety and retail business while creating new public space at one of New York City’s most iconic locations. Pedestrian injuries are down 35 percent and injuries to motorists are down 63 percent, even while traffic is flowing more smoothly than ever. Pedestrian volumes are up 11 percent in Times Square, bringing business to area shops and catapulting Times Square to the second-most expensive retail area in the city.

Yet all anyone ever seemed to talk about were the lawn chairs.

That particular media obsession may finally be ready for retirement, though. NYC DOT and the Department of Design and Construction released plans for the permanent reconstruction of Times Square last night, as reported by DNAinfo. The entire roadway is going to be rebuilt for the first time in 50 years, said DOT spokesperson Seth Solomonow, repairing the utilities beneath the street. Instead of putting the asphalt back in place, however, the city will be installing a plaza designed for pedestrians from the ground up.

The Times Square design, seen from the TKTS booth. Image: NYC DOT.

No longer will you have to step down from the sidewalk to the reclaimed street space. The width of Broadway will be laid with concrete pavers in two dark, alternating tones. In another touch from architecture firm Snøhetta, which designed the project, stainless steel discs will reflect some of Times Square’s neon back off the ground. Benches will be sited to separate areas meant for lounging from areas meant for walking.

The concrete pavers will extend into the roadbed where crosstown streets interrupt the plaza space. Hopefully, that will send a strong visual message to motorists that they are entering a busy pedestrian space.

The new design also includes a bike route through the area, but not on Broadway. According to DNAinfo, cyclists riding south on Broadway’s protected lane would switch to a short contraflow segment on 47th Street, turn onto the west side of Seventh Avenue, cross to the east side of the street at 45th Street, and then cross back onto Broadway at 42nd. For those five blocks, the lane would not be protected.

Construction would begin in 2012 and be complete by 2014, according to DNAinfo.

As seen in this plan, the Broadway bike lane would turn onto Seventh Avenue at 47th Street and run alongside the plaza until it switches to the other side of the street at 45th Street. Image: NYC DOT

Large new pedestrian areas have added safe space for walking and imposed order on traffic at the intersection of Vanderbilt (with the cars queued up) and Flatbush. Photo: Ben Fried

Construction work is nearing completion at one of the summer’s biggest livable streets projects: DOT’s improvements for pedestrians and cyclists at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza. Spurred by the advocacy groundwork laid by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, the city has added huge new pedestrian islands on the north side of the plaza and created safer biking and walking connections on the south side, near the entrance to Prospect Park. All together, the changes make it much easier to walk to GAP’s central public space and navigate the whole area on foot or by bike. Here’s a peek at the pedestrian improvements on the north side.

Above is the intersection of Flatbush and Vanderbilt, looking north from one of the new pedestrian islands. Below is a similar angle, pre-makeover, grabbed from Google Street View.

Image: Google Street View

The view of GAP's northern end, looking east from the point where Flatbush Avenue enters the traffic circle, before the changes. Safe passage for pedestrians was non-existent. Image: Google Street View

The same view today, with a clear, direct path for walking. Photo: Ben Fried

The plan. Image: NYC DOT

Together with the walking and biking improvements to the south side of GAP (more on those later), the remake of the north side is making the central plaza a much more accessible public space. Photo: Ben Fried

The transportation committee of CB 11 voted to bring the complete street design for First Avenue, shown here in the East Village, to East Harlem. Photo: NYC DOT.

The transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 11 wants to see protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues, which the city promised for East Harlem last year and then delayed. Joined by City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who spoke strongly in favor of the project, the committee endorsed plans to build protected lanes between 96th Street and 125th Street on both avenues in a vote of 5-1, with two abstentions.

Officials from the Department of Transportation presented plans to build parking-protected bike lanes on both avenues to the committee last night, saying they would have the same design as on First Avenue south of 34th Street. On that stretch of road, said DOT, the protected bike lanes and pedestrian islands have greatly improved safety — injuries are down 37 percent there — without leading to increased congestion.

2010 conditions on First Avenue at 117th Street. Photo: James Garcia.

DOT bike and pedestrian director Josh Benson said that construction could start as soon as next spring, though he didn’t commit to building out all thirty blocks of each avenue at once. Because First Avenue already has a buffered bike lane, he said, work would start on Second. No work would be done in the Second Avenue Subway work zone south of 100th Street until construction there was complete.

Mark-Viverito took the floor immediately after DOT’s presentation to highlight her support for the plan. City streets need to balance the needs of everyone in the community, she said, “and bikers are a part of that.” In East Harlem, she argued, the need for safe cycling is particularly acute: The neighborhood has high obesity and asthma rates as well as a large senior population in need of shorter road crossings. She also noted that East Harlem was only getting these lanes after being dropped from the early rounds of construction and added back in after sustained activism from the community.

Mark-Viverito also forcefully laid out the case for parking-protected bike lanes. “I don’t think what we have in this community are bike lanes,” she said. “They don’t offer a level of protection and they’re not respected, since they’re just painted on the ground.”

The debate wasn’t unanimous — one community board member worried that with the bike lane, a double-parked car would narrow an avenue to only two through lanes, and a local health teacher complained about the 166 parking spaces that would be removed in the plan — but most who spoke were in favor of the plan.

“I’m not only a cyclist but a mom with four kids who all cycle, and also a driver. It makes complete sense,” said committee chair Peggy Morales, who voted for the lanes, after the meeting. Morales was only a block away when local cyclist Marcus Ewing was doored and killed by a truck last October. “We should be able to go cycling without having to take our lives into our own hands,” said Morales. “This is long overdue.”

The full board of CB 11 will vote on the bike lanes on September 20th. The transportation committee of the Upper East Side’s CB 8 will vote on the lanes in their district tonight.

Last November, Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, backed by State Senator Jose Serrano and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, helped deliver 2,500 handwritten letters to City Hall asking for protected bike lanes up to 125th Street. Photo: Noah Kazis

Presentations will be made on Tuesday the 6th and Wednesday the 7th to the transportation committees of Community Boards 11 and 8, respectively. If you walk or bike on the East Side, these will be can’t-miss meetings. Votes in favor of the project next week would lead to construction next year.

Between 1998 and 2008, nearly 4,900 pedestrians and cyclists were injured or killed on First and Second between Houston and 125th, according to the New York State Department of Transportation. Almost three-fourths of the incidents occurred between 34th and 125th streets.

Some background: In 2010 the city unveiled a comprehensive plan for improved bus, pedestrian and cyclist facilities on First and Second from Houston to 125th Street, including protected bike lanes on Second between 100th and 125th, and on First between 34th and 49th and between 57th and 125th, with a buffered lane in the gap. CB 6, CB 8, and CB 11 all voted for redesigns including protected bike lanes that spring.

Residents and officials — particularly in East Harlem, with its high cyclist count and hazardous conditions for walking and biking — were incensed when they later learned that work north of 34th Street would be delayed indefinitely. This April, progress was accompanied by further uncertainty when DOT announced plans to extend bike lanes on First and Second up to 57th Street in 2011.

Now that it looks like the rest of the project is moving forward, it’s crucial that supporters make their voices heard — particularly in District 8, where the concept of reallocating street space can always be contentious. Times and locations for the meetings are here and here. We’ll have more next week.

This is the generous new sidewalk extension at the five-way intersection of Washington Avenue, Park Place, and Grand Avenue in Brooklyn. Here you can see bell bollards protecting the added pedestrian space between Washington, on the left, and Grand on the right.

I live around the corner, and I can’t say enough about how much this addition has improved the walking experience. Before DOT put this in as part of a broader safety project, the area between Grand and Washington felt like a grey zone were pedestrians weren’t supposed to tread. Walking on the east side of Washington usually entailed weaving between a combination of parked police vehicles and metal barricades:

Image: Google Street View

The cops who operate out of the building at the corner of Grand and Park have staked claim to the sidewalks here, and they seem to consider any pedestrian space within a 200-foot radius of their workplace to be fair game for parking. Here are their vehicles hogging the sidewalk on Park:

At first, when the city poured concrete earlier this year, the cops parked all over the new sidewalk extension too. But that has subsided over the past several weeks as more obstacles have popped up. Many more obstacles. First there were the bell bollards, a standard part of DOT’s toolkit for pedestrian safety projects. Then came several skinnier, red bollards. Now there are huge granite slabs sitting on the sidewalk.

I wish I had taken pictures the whole time to document the sequence, but here’s where things stand right now. Including the traffic signal pole, there are now 13 obstacles in the way of police who want to park on this sidewalk extension:

The total could rise to 15 if the new tree pits get planted as one would expect. This is apparently what it takes to keep the cops from appropriating space from people on foot in order to store their personal vehicles.

James Vacca and Janette Sadik-Khan take advantage of new pedestrian countdown timers crossing 165th Street at the Grand Concourse. Photo: Noah Kazis.

City Council Transportation Chair James Vacca showed his safety supporter side at a press conference in the Bronx this morning. Standing with DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at the corner of the Grand Concourse and 165th Street to announce the installation of countdown pedestrian signals, Vacca had strong words for speeding motorists and endorsements for both automated speeding enforcement and slow speed zones.

“The accidents are too many and the speed is unacceptable,” said Vacca of the Grand Concourse. That avenue had 411 pedestrian injuries between 2005 and 2009 and nine pedestrian fatalities, according to Sadik-Khan. Vacca heartily endorsed the installation of countdown timers along the Grand Concourse, saying he hoped to see them throughout the city.

The countdown signals have also already been installed along Queens Boulevard, Hillside Avenue and Kissena Boulevard in Queens and West Street in Manhattan, among other streets. They will eventually be come to 1,500 intersections citywide.

Off the Concourse, Vacca called for two measures in particular to keep speeds down. He repeated his endorsement of 20 mile per hour speed limits, saying they could work in many neighborhoods, given “local input” in the process. Vacca had hoped that the city’s first 20 mile per hour speed zone would be located in his district, though DOT selected the Claremont section of the Bronx for the first site.

Vacca also urged Albany to pass legislation allowing the city to install automated cameras to enforce the speed limit. “Many motorists have to look themselves in the mirror,” he said. A pedestrian hit at 30 miles per hour, the New York City speed limit, has an 80 percent chance of surviving the crash; a pedestrian hit at 40 miles per hour has only a 30 percent chance of survival. Speeding, said Vacca, is “something we can’t have any tolerance for.”

Vacca’s commitment to promoting street safety through enforcement stands in tension with his positions on redesigning the streets themselves for the same purpose. The transportation committee chair seems more willing to let speeding continue if reining it in would require taking away a parking space, building a bike lane or creating a pedestrian plaza.

Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal press the DOT to install promised safety improvements at the dangerous intersection of Broadway, Amsterdam, and 71st Street on the Upper West Side. Behind them are neighborhood residents and members of Community Board 7. Photo: Noah Kazis

One year ago, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal stood on a traffic island in the middle of the intersection of Amsterdam Avenue, Broadway, and 71st Street to urge the Department of Transportation to install a slew of safety features at what they called “the bowtie of death.” That September, DOT put out a plan to expand sidewalks, add crosswalks and remove traffic lanes from both Broadway and Amsterdam.

This afternoon, Stringer and Rosenthal stood with Upper West Side community leaders on that same traffic island, urging DOT to finally put that safety plan into place. “Not next year, not during the fall, but now,” said Stringer.

Over the last two years, there have been 34 crashes at the intersection, according to Stringer’s office.

DOT had promised to make the safety improvements by this spring, Stringer said. The only change that’s been made so far are the installation of countdown timers on the walk signals. Knowing how much time you have to cross, he said, “is not the same as actually having more time.” Stringer explicitly called for each piece of the DOT safety plan to be installed, including the curb extensions, crosswalks, and the removal of traffic lanes.

“We shouldn’t be standing here today,” said Rosenthal. She’s been pushing for a safety fix for the intersection since 2007, when her office released a report on senior pedestrian safety in the neighborhood with Transportation Alternatives. The dangers of the crossing are so glaring that the Los Angeles Times led off a story on unsafe streets for the elderly with a discussion of that very corner, Rosenthal pointed out.

Rosenthal also named 96th Street, Riverside Boulevard, and the intersection of 79th Street and Riverside Drive as in need of pedestrian safety improvements.

Stringer said that while he’s met with DOT to discuss the intersection, he has gotten no firm commitment on when the safety fixes would be installed. The DOT press office did not reply to Streetsblog’s inquiry about what has held up the promised improvements.

Stringer was careful to state that the press conference was not an attack on the department or on Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. But, he said, “we’re not looking to come out here when somebody dies.”

Update: “Work will begin next month now that we’ve resolved the major challenges of building atop a major, active subway station,” DOT spokesperson Seth Solomonow told Streetsblog after the publication of this story.

DOT's plan for the intersection will, when installed, remove traffic lanes and add major sidewalk extensions and crosswalks

At the southern end of Brooklyn Bridge Park, DOT will calm traffic and create space on the street to take cyclists off the sidewalk. Click for a larger version. Image: NYC DOT

Last week we covered DOT’s proposed safety improvements for the north side of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where sidewalk extensions, bike lanes, and planted medians will all be used to help pedestrians and cyclists safely reach the waterfront. DOT is also turning its attention to improving access to the southern entrance to the park, presenting a plan to Community Board 6 tomorrow evening [PDF]. The proposal reclaims some significant tracts of asphalt, giving pedestrians and cyclists more room on a critical segment of the evolving Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.

The southern access point to Brooklyn Bridge Park, where Atlantic Avenue meets Pier 6, is if anything less hospitable than the northern one. Atlantic Avenue is a notorious speedway — on a stretch further east, cars were recently clocked at an average of 38 miles per hour — and pedestrians who use it to reach the park must cross BQE ramps. Atlantic comes to an end at the park in the form of a 90-foot-wide asphalt rectangle, where pedestrians and cyclists approaching on the south side squeeze onto a sidewalk only four feet wide.

The most prominent item in DOT’s menu of improvements for park access will re-allocate a chunk of that space to pedestrians and cyclists, carving out a plaza and two-way bike lane from all the extraneous pavement. On the sidewalk side of the bike lane, a ten-foot buffer will ensure that truck drivers leaving the adjacent Port Authority facility can see cyclists.

The proposal extends the two-way bike lane treatment south onto Columbia Street, clearly separating cycling space from walking space — no more fighting over sidewalk scraps. The plan calls for separating the bikeway from traffic with Jersey barriers. The room for this expansion of bike-ped space comes from removing a southbound traffic lane and narrowing the others, which should have a traffic-calming effect. A new pedestrian island will also make it easier to cross Atlantic at Columbia.

The DOT plan also includes a signal retiming and possible red light enforcement camera at the northbound BQE on-ramp on Atlantic.

DOT will present the plan to the CB6 transportation committee tomorrow at Long Island College Hospital at 6:30 p.m.

For the historical record, here’s three minutes of rather dull video capturing the pedestrian refuges on Fort Hamilton Parkway and 46th Street in Brooklyn. When the camera pans right you can also see the intersection at 47th Street, where there’s another refuge. I took the footage at the tail end of the p.m. rush this Wednesday, a few minutes before 6:30.

This is the Safe Streets for Seniors project that had local Assembly Member Dov Hikind up in arms for months, contending that the refuges impeded emergency response and interfered with deliveries to local businesses. While nearby Maimonides Medical Center and the FDNY said the islands posed no problem, the Hatzolah volunteer ambulance corps apparently felt differently and petitioned the local community board to have them taken out. Now DOT is going to remove these three refuges and add 24 blocks of striped center median, from 37th Street to 61st Street, to help compensate for the loss. A median island between 45th Street and New Utrecht Avenue will get shaved down but remain in place.

So, watch and see what all the fuss is about. In the snippet of time I got on video, the only person with any reason to complain is the cyclist who got a rude honking from a passing van driver at about the two-minute mark. Below is more footage from the intersection at 45th Street and the median island that’s slated for shaving.

Though they don’t appear in these videos, there were also a few grown men with payos cycling on Fort Hamilton while I was down in Boro Park. No generalizing about Hasidim in the comments, please.

This DOT rendering imagines what a new pedestrian wayfinding system could look like, with sidewalk maps and additional street signs hung from light posts. Image: NYC DOT

Improved sidewalk signage and maps for pedestrians will be the latest addition to the streetscape by the Department of Transportation, which just released a request for proposals for a new wayfinding system in four neighborhoods. In Long Island City, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, Chinatown, and Midtown, DOT hopes the new information will encourage more people to walk and help them get where they’re going faster.

In a DOT survey conducted in preparation for the proposal, nine percent of New Yorkers and 27 percent of tourists said they had been lost in the past week. A good wayfinding system would alleviate confusion and make walking more attractive. After London implemented a similar wayfinding system in the Bond Street area called “Legible London,” pedestrian journeys in the neighborhood were an average of 16 percent faster. (For a look at the London sidewalk maps, check below the jump.)

Moreover, the fear of getting lost probably keeps some people from walking in the first place. Said 34th Street Partnership President Dan Biederman, “A standardized citywide pedestrian sign system would highlight our neighborhood’s offerings, and increase the number of people who walk instead of take taxis from our transit terminals, such as Penn Station.” With additional information, tourists in particular could confidently save a cab fare by walking to certain nearby destinations.

According to the Wall Street Journal, DOT is willing to spend up to $9.5 million on the project over time, but this first phase will only cost $1.5 million, with 80 percent of that covered by the federal government, and local business improvement districts contributing as well.

In London, wayfinding signs point to important destinations, map the area and show how far you can go with 15 minutes of walking.

There is more to walking than walking. Photos by Jan Gehl.

Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a three-part series this week by renowned Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts are from his book, “Cities for People,” published by Island Press. Donate to Streetsblog and Streetfilms and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press.

It is a big day when at about one year of age a child takes that first step. The child’s eye level moves from the vantage point of the crawler (about 1 foot) above the floor to about 2.6 feet.

The little walker can see much more and move faster. From now on everything in the child’s world — field of vision, perspective, overview, pace, flexibility and opportunities — will move on a higher, faster plane. All of life’s important moments will hereafter be experienced on foot at standing and walking pace.

While walking is basically a linear movement that brings the walker from place to place, it is also much more. Walkers can effortlessly stop underway to change direction, maneuver, speed up or slow down or switch to a different type of activity such as standing, sitting, running, dancing, climbing or lying down.

A city walk illustrates its many variations: the quick goal-oriented walk from A to B, the slow stroll to enjoy city life or a sunset, children’s zig-zagging, and senior citizens’ determined walk to get fresh air and exercise or do an errand. Regardless of the purpose, a walk in city space is a “forum” for the social activities that take place along the way as an integral part of pedestrian activities. Heads move from side to side, walkers turn or stop to see everything, or to greet or talk with others. Walking is a form of transport, but it is also a potential beginning or an occasion for many other activities.

Many factors impact on walking speed: the quality of the route, the surface, the strength of the crowd, and the age and mobility of the walker. The design of the space also plays a role. Pedestrians usually walk faster on streets that invite linear movement, while their pace falls while traversing squares. It is almost like water, which flows rapidly along riverbeds but moves more slowly in lakes. Weather is another factor. People move more quickly when it is raining, windy or cold.

Life takes place on foot in Amman, Jordan.

On Copenhagen’s main walking street, Strøget, pedestrian traffic on cold winter days is 35 percent faster than on good summer days. In summer there are many pedestrians in the city promenading and enjoying the process, while pedestrian traffic in winter is considerably more targeted. When it’s cold, people walk for warmth. On average the walking speed in summer is 14.2 min per km/23 min per mile, corresponding to 4.2 km per hour/2.6 mph. Corresponding winter walking speeds are 10.3 min per km/16.6 min per mile corresponding to 5.8 km per hour/3.6 mph.

A walk of 450 m/0.3 mile takes about five minutes, while a walk of 900 m/0.6 mile will take about 10 minutes at 5.4 km per hour/3.4 mph. Naturally, these time estimates are only valid if the area is uncrowded and people can walk without obstacles or breaks.

An acceptable walking distance is a relatively fluid concept. Some people happily walk many kilometers/miles, while even short walks are difficult for old people, the disabled and children. Walks of 500 m/0.3 miles are mentioned frequently as a distance most people are willing to walk. However, an acceptable distance also depends on the quality of the route. If the pavement is good quality and the route interesting, a considerably longer walk is often acceptable. Conversely, the desire to walk drops drastically if the route is uninteresting and thus feels tiring. In that case a walk of only 200 or 300 m/0.12 to 0.18 mile will seem like a long way, even if it only takes less than five minutes on foot.

A distance of 500 m/0.3 mile as an approximate goal for acceptable walks is supported by the size of city centers. By far the majority of city centers are about one km²/0.39 sq mile, corresponding to an area of 1×1 km/0.6 x 0.6 mile. This means that a walk of a kilometer or less will bring the pedestrians around to most of the functions in the city.

Huge cities like London and New York have corresponding patterns, as they are divided into numerous centers and districts. The magic one km² center size can certainly be found in these cities. The acceptable walking distance does not change just because the city is larger.

This street sign in Poland discreetly recommends that people keep their arms close to their sides

An important prerequisite for a comfortable and pleasurable walk is room to walk relatively freely and unhampered, without having to weave in and out and without being pushed and shoved by others. Children, older people and people with disabilities have special requirements for being able to walk unhindered. People pushing strollers, shopping carts and walkers also need plenty of room for walking. Groups of young people are typically the most tolerant about moving about in crowds.

If we look at photographs from 100 years ago, pedestrians are often shown moving freely and unimpeded in every direction. Cities were still primarily the province of pedestrians, with horse-drawn carriages and trolleys and a few cars merely as visitors.

In step with the car invasion, pedestrians were first pushed up along building façades and then increasingly squeezed together on shrinking sidewalks. Crowded sidewalks are unacceptable and a problem worldwide.

Studies of urban streets in London, New York and Sydney illustrate the problems of narrow sidewalks for large crowds of pedestrians on streets where most of the area is designed for car traffic, despite the fact that the number of drivers is far lower than the number of pedestrians crowded together on the sidewalk.

The pedestrian traffic on sidewalks moves in columns that are pushed and shoved, and everyone must move at the speed dictated by the pedestrian stream. The elderly, the disabled and children cannot possibly keep up.

Various limits are suggested for what is considered an acceptable amount of space for pedestrian traffic, depending on context. Based on studies in New York, William H. Whyte proposes up to 23 pedestrians per minute per meter/three feet on the sidewalk. Studies in Copenhagen propose 13 pedestrians per minute per meter/three feet of sidewalk, if the limit for unacceptable crowding on sidewalks is to be avoided.

If walking is to be comfortable, including acceptable distance and pace, there has to be room to walk without too many interruptions and obstacles. These qualities are often offered in dedicated pedestrian areas, but seldom on sidewalks on city streets. On the contrary, it is impressive to note how many obstacles and difficulties have been incorporated into pedestrian landscapes over the years. Traffic signs, lampposts, parking meters and all types of technical control units are systematically placed on sidewalks in order “not to be in the way.” Cars parked on or partially on sidewalks, thoughtlessly parked bicycles and undisciplined street displays complete the picture of a pedestrian landscape where pedestrians have to maneuver like skiers down a slalom course in order to move along sidewalks that are too narrow in the first place.

The high priority given to car traffic and parking have created unreasonable conditions for pedestrians all over the world.

Enough space for walking is important to all groups of pedestrians, but especially children, the elderly and the disabled.

Walking in urban landscapes can present many other petty annoyances and difficulties. One is pedestrian fences intended to keep walkers confined to crowded sidewalks. Barriers erected on pavements at intersections to keep pedestrians away from corners extend some way down the street, causing more detours and annoyance

Interruptions in sidewalks to provide cars with uncomplicated access to garages, driveways, delivery gates and gas stations have gradually become a natural part of the street scene in car-dominated cities.

On Regent Street in London, 45 – 50,000 pedestrians daily force their way through 13 unnecessary sidewalk interruptions, and in Adelaide, South Australia, streets in the city center offer pedestrians no fewer than 330 unnecessary sidewalk interruptions.

In addition to these meaningless interruptions that force pedestrians, wheelchairs and strollers up and down curbs at garages and gates, there are many unmotivated interruptions where small streets run into larger ones. In almost all of the situations mentioned, the sidewalk should be led unbroken through entrance ways and side streets as part of a general policy of inviting rather than discouraging pedestrian traffic.

The combination of inadequate space and annoyances large and small is supplemented by endless waiting time at stoplights at city intersections. Pedestrians are typically given low priority and thus face long waits at red lights followed by short green-light periods. The green light often only lasts seconds before being replaced by blinking red signals meaning that it is now time to run to avoid delaying the traffic.

When walking resembles an obstacle course (Sydney, Australia).

In many places, particularly in the UK and other areas inspired by British traffic planning, crossing the streets is not a basic human right but rather something pedestrians have to apply for by pushing a button at intersections. Sometimes they even have to press three times to make it through the maze at complicated intersections. In these cities any thought of being able to walk 450 meters/1,476 feet in five minutes is a fantasy.

The center of Sydney has many pedestrians, as well as many intersections, many stoplights, many pushbuttons and long periods of waiting. Here pedestrians can easily spend half of the total walking time waiting for the “walk” signal. Waits of up to 15 percent, 25 percent or even 50 percent of a walk are common on many traffic streets in cities around the world.

By comparison, the waiting time on a one-kilometer/0.6 mile walk on Copenhagen’s main walking street, Strøget, is only 0 – 3 percent of walking time. A goal-oriented walk through the city via Strøget can be done in 12 minutes, but many people spend far more time because the walk is so interesting.

Another special walking phenomenon has been noted on sidewalks where crossroads streets and light signals cause pedestrians to stop frequently. Pedestrians move in clumps and therefore always in crowds, even at times when there isn’t much pedestrian traffic.

Every time the pedestrian stream meets a red light the pedestrians stop, and the slightly slower walkers have time to catch up with the main field, after which everyone is once again amalgamated into a clump. When the light turns green, the clump moves forward again, but disperses slightly before the next stoplight, where everyone is gathered once again. Between clumps, the sidewalk is typically almost devoid of people.

Urbanites all over the world are highly energy conscious when it comes to saving their own energy when walking. They cross streets where it is most natural for them, avoid detours, obstacles, stairs and steps, and prefer direct lines of walking everywhere. When pedestrians can see the object of a walk, they rechart a course along the shortest line. Their pleasure from direct walks can be seen clearly in city squares, by their footsteps after a snowfall and on countless tramped paths worn across lawns and landscapes the world over.

Walking directly to your destination is a natural response, often in an unfortunate and almost comic conflict with architects’ rulers and the resulting right-angled urban projects. These right-angled design projects look neat and proper until the corners, lawns and squares are trodden on in every direction.

It is often easy to foresee the preferred lines of walking and to incorporate them to a reasonable extent in the design of complexes and landscaping. Preferred lines often inspire fascinating patterns and shapes.

Many cities have consistently allowed entrances, garages and side streets to interrupt sidewalks. However, cars should yield on side streets, allowing pedestrians and bicycles to continue on without interruption (Regent Street, London).

A standard traffic solution in Copenhagen.

About 500 meters/1,640 feet is a distance most pedestrians find acceptable. This is not an absolute truth, however, because what is acceptable will always be a combination of distance and the quality of the route. If comfort is low, the walk will be short, while if the route is interesting, rich in experience and comfortable, pedestrians forget the distance and enjoy experiences as they happen.

The “tiring length perspective” describes the situation in which the pedestrian can see the whole route at a glance before even starting out. The road is straight and seemingly endless, with no promise of interesting experiences along the way. The prospect is tiring before the walk is even begun.

In contrast, the route can be divided into manageable segments, where people can walk from square to square, which naturally breaks up the walk, or along a street that winds enticingly, inviting the pedestrian from one section to the next. A winding street does not have to twist much to prevent the walker seeing very far down the street, but is constantly walking towards corners and twists, where new vistas open.

Copenhagen’s main pedestrian street, Strøget, is a good kilometer/0.6 mile long and runs almost directly from one end of the city center to the other. Countless twists and turns along the way keep the spaces closed up and interesting. Four squares further divide the route and make walking the length of the city center psychologically manageable. We walk from square to square, and the many twists and turns make the trip interesting and unpredictable. Under these circumstances a walk of one kilometer/0.6 mile or more is no problem.

Street patterns, the design of space, rich detail and intense experiences influence the quality of pedestrian routes and pleasure in walking. The city’s “edges” also play a role. We have plenty of time to look as we walk, and the quality of the ground floor façades we pass close by at eye level, is particularly important to the quality of the tour. The section on lively cities proscribes “small units and many doors” for streets frequented by pedestrians.

The principle of narrow units and many experiences is also important along pedestrian routes that don’t have shops and stalls. Front doors, building details, landscaping and greenery in front of housing, offices and institutions can make a valuable contribution to interesting experiences on walks. If buildings also have a primarily vertical façade expression, walks seem shorter and more manageable, whereas buildings with powerful horizontal lines underscore and reinforce distance.

Walking up stairs is harder than walking on a flat surface, and we avoid stairs whenever we can. And for many groups in society stairs are a direct barrier.

Stairs and steps are another area that clearly illustrate pedestrians’ major interest in saving energy. Horizontal movements are no big problem. If the telephone rings in a neighboring room, we just get up and answer it. However, if the telephone rings on another floor, we shout to ask if someone else will answer it. Going up and down stairs and steps requires new movements, more muscle power, and walking rhythm has to be changed to climbing rhythm. These factors make it more difficult to go up and down than to move on the same plane, or alternatively, to be transported mechanically up and down. At metro stations, in airports and department stores, people stand in line to take the escalator, while staircases next to them are almost empty. Shopping malls and department stores built in several stories rely on escalators and elevators to move people from floor to floor. If the transport breaks down, people go home!

It is interesting to study daily life in multistory housing. In almost all cases, the bulk of activity takes place on the ground floor. Once you have entered the living room, you naturally tend to wait before going upstairs again. Children bring their toys down into the living room, where they play with them all day until their parents take them back up again at bedtime. The lower floors are almost always more well-worn than the upper ones. Second-or third-floor rooms are almost always used less than those on the ground floor, and roof terraces are used far less than outside space with direct access without climbing stairs. The heaps gathered on the bottom steps waiting to be taken upstairs speak volumes about the physical and psychological problems related to internal stairs.

Stairs and steps definitely represent a genuine physical and psychological challenge for pedestrians. If possible pedestrians certainly will avoid them. However, like street length, staircases can also be disguised to make the trip seem more doable. If at the foot of a five-story building we could see the entire staircase with its seemingly endless steps, most people would find it impossible to crawl to the top, unless their lives were at stake. In situations like these it is interesting to see the wide- spread use of elementary “staircase psychology.”

If we can see the staircase all the way to the top, we find the climb all the more tiring.

Staircases are angled to wind from landing to landing, dividing the climb into shorter segments. It is like moving from “square” to “square,” and the climber never gets the chance to see the entire course of stairs in its exhausting length. That way we are enticed into the building, even if we have to climb. Even when the enticement is utterly convincing, it is the elevator that is the most used if there is one. Naturally staircase psychology is also used successfully in public space, where examples like the Spanish Steps in Rome demonstrate that a climb can be beautifully combined with interesting experiences.

With regard to visions of lovely urban space that invite people to walk as much as possible, the conclusion is actually very simple. Stairs and steps are genuine obstacles — in principle to be avoided wherever possible. When a necessity in the pedestrian landscape, stairs and steps must have comfortable dimensions, and visual interest and staircase psychology must be used purposefully. Ramps or elevators are estab- lished for rolling pedestrian traffic and people with reduced mobility as a matter of course.

If we consider situations where pedestrians are free to choose between ramps and stairs, we see that they clearly prefer ramps. Walking rhythm can be maintained if height differences are evened out by allowing the terrain to rise and fall slightly or by using ramps. Children, the disabled and rolling pedestrian traffic can also complete their walk without interruptions. Ramps are not always as full of character as stairs and steps, but they are generally preferred.

Marathon preparation in Venice means ramps instead of stairs.

Shoppers have a choice of ramps, stairs and escalators at this shopping center in Beijing, China.

In the early years of the automobile invasion, from the 1950s to the 1970s, road engineering focused uncritically on increasing capacity on the roads and preventing accidents to pedestrians. The solution to both problems was often to segregate traffic and lead pedestrians under or over roads by means of pedestrian underpasses and bridges. This meant subjecting pedestrians to stairs on either side of the crossing. Planners quickly learned that pedestrian underpasses and bridges were exceedingly unpopular and only worked if tall fences were also built along the roads, so that pedestrians literally had no other way out. This still did not solve the problem of strollers, wheelchairs and bicycles, however.

Pedestrian underpass systems had the additional disadvantage of being dark and dank, and people generally feel insecure if they are unable to see very far ahead. In short, the often expensive pedestrian underpasses and bridges were in conflict with the basic premises for good pedestrian landscapes. Seen in the perspective of current visions of inviting people to walk and bicycle more in cities, clearly pedestrian underpasses and bridges can only be solutions in those special cases where major highways must be crossed. Solutions must be found for all other roads and streets that allow pedestrians and bicycles to stay on street level and cross with dignity. An integrated traffic model will also make city streets friendlier and safer as cars will have to move more slowly and stop more often.

Today the world is full of abandoned pedestrian underpasses and bridges. They belong to a certain time and a certain philosophy.

in Japanese cities the overpass- es are intertwined into larger systems. Level of difficulty: great. Chances of interesting promenades: small (Sendai, Japan).

Naturally pavements play an important role in pedestrian comfort. In future the quality of pavement and surfaces will be particularly important in a world with more senior citizens and pedestrians with reduced mobility, more rolling pedestrian traffic and more people wanting to take children to the city. It is desirable for surfaces to be even and non slip. Traditional cobblestones and broken natural slate stones are full of visual character, but seldom live up to modern requirements. In places where the character of the old cobblestones has to be maintained, bands of flat granite have to be added to enable wheelchairs, strollers, small children, senior citizens and women in high heels to move in relative comfort. This type of pavement, combining old with new, is used in many cities and can be designed as elegant floors for public space, while paying history its due.

As far as possible, a good city for walking must function all year round, day and night. In winter it is important that snow and ice are cleared, and, to use the Copenhagen model as an example, pedestrian areas and bicycle paths should be cleared before roads for car traffic. On cold days when pavements are icy, pedestrians have a far greater risk of injury than do car drivers, who typically drive more slowly and carefully. In all parts of the world and in all seasons, ensuring dry nonslip surfaces for pedes- trians is an important part of whole-hearted invitations to walk in cities.

Lighting is crucial once night falls. Good lighting on people and faces and reasonable lighting for façades, niches and corners is needed along the most important pedestrian routes to strengthen the real and the ex- perienced sense of security, and sufficient light is needed on pavements, surfaces and steps so that pedestrians can maneuver safely.

Please walk — around the clock all year round.

DOT's plan for 181st Street includes a part-time bus lane and pedestrian safety features, but it's less ambitious than other options the agency presented last year. Image: NYC DOT

With five bus lines, two subway stops, a busy commercial strip, the only entrance to the Hudson River Greenway for blocks, and major bridge crossings at both ends of the street, Washington Heights’ 181st Street is a tangle of cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians. For years, DOT has been looking to redesign the corridor entirely, with the goal of finding a way to serve all those different needs.

In a plan presented to the local community board last Monday [PDF], DOT finally came out with its proposal for the street. With a slew of pedestrian safety improvements and a bus-only lane designated for the evening rush hour, the plan should be a major improvement for the neighborhood, but like other recent redesigns on 34th Street and First and Second Avenues, it’s far less ambitious than what could have been.

As recently as last fall, DOT was considering a protected bus lane for this project. Local elected leadership seemed split. At a presentation on the project to Community Board 12, an aide to Denny Farrell conveyed the Assembly member’s opposition to a major reconfiguration, while local City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez seemed open to the ambitious reallocation of space, telling CB12, “We have to make a certain level of radical change in how traffic is organized in that area.” The changes on the table now are positive, but not radical improvements.

Currently, 181st Street has two travel lanes and a parking lane in each direction on the wider blocks east of Broadway, narrowing to a single travel lane and parking lane on the blocks west of Broadway. The proposed changes mostly focus on the eastern section, as no buses continue on to the narrower section.

Under the proposed design, pedestrians will be safer thanks to a curb extension at the intersection of 181st and Haven Avenue, leading pedestrian intervals where 181st meets Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue, and, if the community board wants them, pedestrian refuge islands at St. Nicholas Avenue. Longer-term plans to extend the sidewalks at St. Nicholas and Amsterdam Avenues would calm traffic further.

For bus riders, the curbside parking on the south side of 181st Street would be replaced with a dedicated eastbound bus lane from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., improving reliability by clearing the way for Bronx-bound buses at the very beginning of their routes. On the block between Audobon and Amsterdam Avenues, which a DOT spokesperson said was where buses suffered the biggest delays from congestion, the bus lane would be in effect from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The entire project is part of DOT’s Congested Corridors program, and the plan includes left-turn bays to help traffic move more smoothly. Curb parking will be replaced with loading zones during designated times, intended to minimize the rampant double parking along 181st. By keeping the through lanes clear, said the DOT spokesperson, these features will also keep buses moving smoothly.

Finally, the plan calls for a few new safety features on north/south streets intersecting 181st, including a southbound bike lane on Fort Washington between 183rd and 181st Streets and a traffic-calming center median on St. Nicholas between 183rd and 179th.

An option the DOT chose not to pursue would have given 181st Street New York City's first physically separated bus lanes.

That’s a fair number of changes to a stretch barely over half a mile long, but it’s much less than what was on the table in October. One option, for example, would have built New York City’s first physically separated bus lanes on 181st. With one in each direction and a raised bus stop mid-street, that plan would have provided one fewer traffic lane and one fewer parking lane than the current plan, but done much more for transit riders.

Another option was an approach that would have made 181st a real multi-modal street. With large sidewalk extensions on the whole corridor, a buffered bike lane and a bus lane, this discarded option would have redistributed space from drivers to every other user of the street.

In another rejected option, 181st Street would have become a true complete street, with extra room for pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders.

One reason DOT trimmed its sails was the decision to maintain two-way automobile traffic along 181st. In addition to Farrell’s aide, a former chair of CB 12 and several other local residents expressed opposition to a one-way street in October, and the DOT spokesperson confirmed that the department acceded to that request. Council Member Rodriguez did not respond to Streetsblog’s request to comment for this story.

There were also technical problems with the more ambitious options, he said. In the protected busway scenario, buses would have difficulty turning into a physically separated busway, the spokesperson said, while in the multi-modal proposal, cars cutting across the unprotected bus lane to park would slow buses. Given the success of offset bus lanes on First and Second Avenues, however, at least the second objection seems easily overcome.

Photo: Ben Fried

Construction has started on NYC DOT’s project to greatly expand the pedestrian zones at the north end of Grand Army Plaza. The result of a years-long community-based planning process led by the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, these pedestrian improvements will reclaim a lot of asphalt and give people a much more direct walking route to the central public space at the heart of GAP. Construction of the pedestrian islands is slated to run through July, with new bike and pedestrian features on the south side of GAP scheduled for August [PDF]. Another feature in the original DOT plan for GAP — a two-way protected bike path on Plaza Street — has been postponed indefinitely.

The piece under construction right now is the “eastern wing” of the four-part pedestrian expansion:

Image: NYCDOT

Despite what Dov Hikind and Marcia Kramer say, the fire department reports no trouble navigating the new pedestrian refuge islands on Fort Hamilton Parkway.

Here’s something Marcia Kramer, Dov Hikind, and Marty Markowitz forgot to mention in all their accumulated lawsuit threats, media events, and TV coverage on the Fort Hamilton Parkway pedestrian refuges: FDNY and Maimonides hospital report that the project has not affected response times.

In opposing the pedestrian islands, designed to calm traffic and provide a safer crossing for Borough Park’s large senior population, Kramer, Hikind, and Markowitz have attempted to wrap themselves in the banner of public safety. They claim that the islands make it difficult for emergency vehicles to traverse the road, slowing response times to nearby Maimonides. According to Maimonides itself and the FDNY, however, their vehicles are able to move freely and respond to emergencies as effectively as ever.

“As far as the hospital is concerned, there has been no issue with delivering care,” Maimonides Assistant Vice President for Public Relations Eileen Tynan told Streetsblog. “Our ambulance drivers concur.” If medical care is suffering as a result of the pedestrian islands, it’s news to those providing care.

The FDNY similarly reported no problem with its fire trucks or ambulances navigating the redesigned Fort Hamilton Parkway and no threat to public safety. Said a fire department spokesperson by e-mail, “FDNY met with DOT regarding these ‘pedestrian refuge islands’ before they were installed. As with any project, any concerns would be discussed and fixed. I do not have any information that says our units cannot drive safely on Fort Hamilton Parkway.” FDNY EMTs and paramedics respond to 1.2 million emergencies citywide each year, or three a minute.

Dov Hikind’s office has not responded to requests for comment about the statements from Maimonides and FDNY.

One subset of emergency responders who may be influencing Hikind’s opposition to pedestrian safety infrastructure is Hatzolah, the Orthodox Jewish volunteer ambulance service. Hatzolah has petitioned the local community board to ask the city to take out the refuge islands, according to CBS 2.

Hatzolah CEO Rabbi David Cohen said it was a given that the refuges slow emergency vehicles. “It will increase response times,” he said. “You don’t need a transportation maven to tell you.” Cohen added that he didn’t have any hard measurement of increased response times, only driver testimony, and that no one had died as a result of the supposedly slower Hatzolah service.

Cohen also brought up issues unrelated to emergency response, complaining that the refuge islands have made it harder for businesses to load and unload, and had slowed traffic for non-emergency drivers. “Quite frankly, it just increases driving times around,” he said. “A bottleneck is bad anywhere, and when it’s next to a hospital, that’s doubly bad.”

But the refuges have not removed any traffic lanes from the roadway, suggesting that any new traffic back-ups must be caused by double-parking, and the only effect on loading is that double-parkers cause inconvenience to the drivers behind them. It seems like Hatzolah, and the businesses Cohen spoke for, do not have a pedestrian refuge problem. They have a double-parking problem.

A lack of good pedestrian infrastructure in Port Richmond makes walking to transit unsafe and unpleasant. Image: NYC DOT

In two low-income neighborhoods, DOT is planning to make it easier and safer for residents to reach transit. In East New York [PDF] and Port Richmond [PDF], features like curb extensions, new sidewalks, and improved pedestrian ramps will be installed by next year.

While both neighborhoods have rich transit options — that section of East New York is served by the A, C, J, Z, and L trains and the Long Island Railroad, while Port Richmond has some of Staten Island’s best bus service — non-existent or inadequate sidewalks and a lack of lighting make it unpleasant or unsafe to walk to transit.

DOT is eyeing improvements at ten target locations in Port Richmond and seven in East New York, with particular emphasis on Richmond Terrace and Atlantic Avenue. So far, the plans are very preliminary; the public meetings held in May were the first for each project, and no specific improvements have been planned yet. In each case, though, DOT says it will have completed the project by the end of next March.

Both projects are funded by the federal New Freedom program, which aims to make public transportation more accessible to people with disabilities.

Last night Marcia Kramer served up more of her unique brand of public service journalism, triumphantly reporting that the city will remove pedestrian safety measures designed to prevent seniors from getting killed and maimed in Borough Park traffic. Touring Fort Hamilton Parkway with Dov Hikind, the State Assembly rep who threatened last month to sue NYC DOT over the recently-installed pedestrian islands, Kramer reported that the city has agreed to remove what she called “the offending barricades.” But it seems like in their zeal to run up the score against pedestrian safety improvements, Kramer and Hikind overstated the extent of the changes in store for the street.

According to multiple sources familiar with the current status of the project, the changes that the city is considering will narrow but not remove the pedestrian refuges. It’s not clear how wide the refuges will be after the alterations. The changes will also include adding pedestrian safety features to other intersections on Fort Hamilton Parkway.

DOT spokesperson Seth Solomonow said the details of the changes are still getting fleshed out: “We are considering making adjustments and additional improvements along the corridor, though nothing has been finalized at this time.”

Hikind has been attacking the pedestrian refuges since last fall, with a few assists from Kramer. Her CBS2 segments have portrayed the refuges — built as part of NYC DOT’s citywide Safe Streets for Seniors initiative — as agents of “cement chaos” (note: they are made of concrete). While the Safe Streets for Seniors program uses traffic injury and demographic data to pinpoint locations where senior pedestrians are most in need of safety improvements, Kramer and Hikind are fond of using visual anecdotes and mangled logic to make their case for undoing street designs that save lives.

After announcing his intent to sue DOT over the pedestrian islands, Hikind told Streetsblog, “I care about pedestrians at least as much as you do.”

Then he went on to claim that DOT “didn’t do its homework” because another stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway has a worse pedestrian safety record than the blocks that received refuges. Given the spate of horrific traffic deaths that preceded the installation of the pedestrian islands, it would seem to follow that someone who cares about pedestrians would then call for more pedestrian safety measures on the blocks where even more people are getting killed. But Hikind is only on DOT’s case for taking steps to protect pedestrians.

Meanwhile, how many times can Marcia Kramer run the same shot of an ambulance steering into the opposite traffic lane and pretend like the same thing doesn’t happen on other two-way NYC streets all the time? How much mileage can she get out of the unsubstantiated assertion that the islands cause trouble for emergency vehicles on the way to Maimonides hospital, without citing any hard evidence?

To see what the situation on the ground actually looks like, just keep your eye on the background of last night’s Kramer hit job. Watch as she and Hikind tour what looks to be a remarkably well-functioning stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway, standing in the middle of the very refuges they want to tear out, as traffic moves at a calm and deliberate pace around them.

Pedestrian fatalities from 2000 to 2009 near the high school I graduated from, in Philadelphia's inner suburbs. Map your own neighborhoods at Transportation for America's website.

Transportation for America’s new report, “Dangerous by Design,” includes rankings of states and metro areas, but you can zoom in even more precisely on your neighborhood or your kids’ school. Check out their interactive map to find pedestrian fatalities and identify trouble spots near you.

And don’t stop there. T4America is encouraging everyone who supports safer streets to take action and tell Congress to preserve funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

If a jumbo jet went down every month, Congress would pass laws left and right. If a consumer product injured someone every seven minutes, the feds would shut down production.

Well, that’s exactly how many Americans are being killed and injured in the act of walking pedestrian-unfriendly streets, according to our report, out today. But in the case of pedestrian safety, our federal tax dollars actually go to build streets that are designed to be perilous to children, the elderly and everyone else.

And yet, right now, some in Congress are trying to kill funding for projects to make it safer to walk and bicycle!

What can be done to reduce the number of deaths on the country’s roads? Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition explained how safer street designs save lives.

Since adopting a “complete streets” approach in 2006, Seattle has seen a decline in overall traffic fatalities across the city, she said. All kinds of crashes, not just those involving pedestrians, dropped 21 percent after a street redesign on Aurora Avenue, a major north-south arterial, which was outfitted with new crossings, bus plazas, and other pedestrian facilities. Meanwhile, McCann said, on Stone Way, where trucks, cars and bicycles struggled to share the road, new designs resulted in a 75 percent decline in speeding, a 35 percent increase in bicycle traffic – and a decrease in the rate of bicycle crashes. Pedestrian collisions fell by 80 percent.

In New York City, the DOT has found that installing bike lanes is a boon for pedestrians, too: Serious crashes on streets with bike lanes are 40 percent less deadly than on other streets. Injuries to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists have fallen steeply on corridors where innovative protected bikeways have been installed — in some locations, traffic injuries dropped more than 50 percent after implementation.

Meanwhile, the public health community, alarmed by the nation’s obesity epidemic, has been telling people to get out and get active. But in some places, walking for health could be more dangerous than staying sedentary.

“People have tried to say that obesity and diabetes are related to personal behaviors, that people don’t exercise enough and eat the wrong kinds of foods,” said Dr. Tony DeLucia, a leader in the American Lung Association and other public health groups. “But in public health, we’ve started to look upstream at how, since World War Two, the design of the transportation system has been inclined toward automobile, almost exclusively.”

So is this a national issue? According to James Corless of T4America, roads eligible for federal aid funds account for about 15 percent of lane miles in the United States, but 67 percent of pedestrian fatalities happen on those roads. Clearly these roads are being built wrong, using federal taxpayer dollars to engineer and construct a physical environment that put people’s lives in danger. The federal government needs to take note and prevent more needless deaths.