Cars, Pedestrians and Safe Streets

Is New York really the 13th most dangerous large city in the country for pedestrians?   A study reported on earlier this week at Streetsblog shows New York, somewhat surprisingly, to have a pedestrian fatality rate comparable to such car-friendly cities as Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles. 

Regardless of the reason for these findings, the study I think does show one thing clearly: to reduce pedestrian fatalities to near zero, a city has around two options:

The Modernist solution: total pedestrian segregation.

• Remove pedestrians from the city to the extent possible, or segregate them.
• Remove cars from the city, or greatly constrain them.

Reflecting the first option is the idealized auto-dependent city of the early Modernist period, at right: a mocked-up American version of the Corbusian Ville Contemporaine filmed for the 1939 World's Fair, where all pedestrians are strictly segregated in recognition of the incompatibility of high-speed traffic arterials and human beings on foot (a more  localized example is the enclosed mall).  On the other hand, a car-free city such as Venice also has, unsurprisingly, a very low pedestrian fatality rate.

By contrast, in dense urban areas where large numbers of pedestrians and high-speed traffic share the streets, it appears a certain rate of pedestrian deaths is inevitable regardless of the measures which are taken to redesign street layouts.  Presumably this is due to induced pedestrian traffic: as an urban environment becomes more pleasant for pedestrians, pedestrian activity will rise in response, resulting in a numerical increase in fatalities even as the per capita fatality rate falls.  If the new pedestrian volume does not come at the expense of more dangerous automobile use (e.g. if people drive to the pedestrian-friendly area), the number of total transit-related fatalities may remain essentially the same.  Possibly this explains why cities of such varying pedestrian friendliness have roughly similar fatality rates: New York (1.9/100,000); Houston (2.0); Los Angeles (2.0); San Francisco (1.6); Atlanta (1.6); Philadelphia (1.7); Denver (1.7).  

Running the gauntlet, 3rd Avenue, NYC.

This is why I think Jane Jacobs was on point in when, in terms of improving the city's streets and other public spaces, she referred to "an attrition of automobiles by cities" (Death and Life, p. 474) rather than today's "efforts to improve pedestrian safety."  The difference may seem minor, but Jacobs' statement identifies the culprit not as insufficient accommodation for people on foot — which implicitly acknowledges the primacy, or at least inevitability, of the automobile — but the automobile itself, the culprit behind pedestrian deaths along suburban arterials and urban streets alike.

Jacobs envisioned a long-term strategy in which pedestrians would, bit by bit, encroach upon and reclaim the public realm from the car.  This is quite different from a modern Complete Streets approach, which at best seeks equality for pedestrians, rather than privilege, and which at worst, as Strong Towns Blog has shown, results in over-engineered, car-friendly thoroughfares where sidewalks and bike lanes are little more than an expensive afterthought.  To fully address street safety, the conception of the role of the car in urban settings could stand to take a bit more inspiration from Jacobs' point of view.

See also:  Are Narrow Streets A Realistic Objective?

(h/t Pedestrian Observations).