While Mobilizing The Region readers don’t need to be convinced that walking can be a dangerous undertaking in many parts of the tri-state region (especially for seniors), Smart Growth America’s 2014 Dangerous by Design report provides even more evidence of the unfortunate perils of being a pedestrian. The report finds that:

• Of all United States metropolitan areas, the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metro area has the highest percentage of traffic fatalities that were pedestrians.
• New York State has the third-highest pedestrian fatality rate for pedestrians 65 years and older.

The analysis examines pedestrian fatalities through a few different lenses. Dangerous by Design uses a Pedestrian Danger Index to measure the likelihood of a pedestrian being killed by a car for each state and metropolitan area, and it also looks at road type, the posted speeds of roadways where pedestrians were killed and pedestrian fatality rates by age and race. The report provides metro area and county breakdowns by state for certain statistics, too.

A close study of Dangerous by Design’s data reveals that for tri-state counties, arterial roadways are by far the most dangerous for pedestrians. Between 2003 and 2012, nearly 90 percent of counties in the tri-state region had 50 percent or more of their total pedestrian fatalities occurring on arterial roadways, even though just 15 percent of lane miles in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are classified as arterials.

In addition, over half of tri-state counties had 50 percent or more of their total pedestrian fatalities occurring on roads with posted speed limits of 40 miles per hour or above.

As the report makes clear, vehicle speed has long been considered a factor not only in the likelihood of a vehicle-pedestrian crash, but also the likelihood that the crash will result in a fatality.

Fortunately, some communities in the region have begun to implement changes aimed at reducing pedestrian deaths. The New York City Department of Transportation’s arterial slow zones — a welcome effort to address the deadly combination of arterial road design and traffic speed — are a considerable step forward. And in Albany, there’s a growing chorus of New York municipalities who want local control over speed limits. In New Jersey, state legislators have introduced a number of bills that would crack down on reckless driving, and Connecticut recently passed a vulnerable user bill, which would levy a fine of up to $1,000 on drivers who injure or kill pedestrians, cyclists and other users of the road.