Throughout the weekend of Sept. 22, 4 pedestrians had been killed within the Denver metro area. Three of these individuals had been killed on Colorado Division of Transportation roads. Pedestrian deaths statewide are at an all time excessive.
It’s typically mentioned {that a} system produces the outcomes that it’s designed for, and based mostly on the constant sample of current deaths, our system of state highways in city areas usually are not designed for pedestrian security. They’re designed to maneuver a big quantity of vehicles by means of city neighborhoods stuffed with pedestrians and transit customers at excessive speeds.
Take Federal Boulevard, a CDOT highway, the place it passes by CDOT Headquarters, as one instance.
At that location, the highway is 8 lanes large — about 100 toes throughout. It’s an extended, harmful crossing, particularly for elders or those that use wheelchairs.
That section of Federal passes by a transit hub the place a number of of Denver’s busiest bus traces and the W Line light-rail meet. But the highway has a lethal design for pedestrians. The lanes are large, which inspires drivers to hurry, and on the 35 mph pace restrict, there’s a 50% likelihood {that a} pedestrian hit by a driver will die. In Denver, solely 7% of all journeys are made by pedestrians, but practically half of the deaths on Federal Boulevard since 2013 have been pedestrians.
So what can we do? First, scale back the pace restrict on our city roads the place pedestrians are constantly being killed. Streets like Federal Boulevard, Colfax Avenue, Colorado Boulevard, and Sheridan Boulevard are all a part of the excessive damage community — the 5% of Denver streets that account for 50% of visitors fatalities. We all know that pace kills, and if we need to take pedestrian security severely, we should decrease the pace limits in locations the place persons are being constantly killed.
In Denver, 83% of deadly crashes contain speeds of better than 30 mph. We are able to scale back the variety of fatalities by reducing the pace of autos in city space with massive variety of pedestrians and transit customers which have traditionally had a nigh variety of crashes. I hope that almost all of us would make the tradeoff to get someplace a couple of minutes later driving our automobile if it means the highway can be safer and there’s a likelihood of 1 much less particular person dying. Seattle noticed success in reducing their pace limits on arterial roads to 25 mph with a discount in damage charges. CDOT ought to decrease the pace restrict to 25 mph on excessive damage community roads. This may very well be accomplished by CDOT in a matter of months.
Second, we are able to implement automated pace and purple mild cameras. Due to new laws from the state Common Meeting,now we have extra alternatives for automated enforcement.
In 2018, previous to the passage of the regulation, CDOT turned down Denver’s request so as to add a purple mild cameras at 14th and Federal Boulevard — the damaging part of Federal talked about above. Since then, Denver has realized that purple mild cameras elsewhere, just like the one at sixth Avenue and Lincoln Avenue, have decreased damage crashes by 80%. And photograph pace enforcement vans in Denver have resulted in a 21% discount in autos going at the least 10 mph over the pace restrict.
CDOT ought to rethink permitting Denver to implement pace and purple mild cameras on CDOT-managed excessive damage streets to cut back fatalities and accidents. It ought to achieve this with an emphasis on fairness, in order to not make the identical errors that Chicago did and find yourself ticketing communities of coloration disproportionately.
Third, CDOT in the long term can concentrate on highway design. Narrower driving lanes, pedestrian medians, curb extensions that intermittently slender the roadway, planting timber, including transit-only lanes, and wider sidewalks (or simply having a sidewalk) are simply some examples of issues that may be accomplished to change the highway design, to pressure drivers to decelerate, and to make strolling alongside and throughout CDOT roads safer for pedestrians.
If CDOT desires concentrate on pedestrian security, it could implement security enhancements to our city roads with the identical stage of urgency that it musters when Glenwood Canyon is closed for rock slides, or commit as a lot cash to it because the $250 million it’s spending on widening Interstate 70 at Vail move, or the $700 million it’s spending to widen I-70 at Floyd Hill.
In my expertise, visitors engineers are inclined to blame crashes on behaviors of people. Federal Boulevard has had greater than 11,000 crashes since 2013. This isn’t a habits downside. It’s a system downside. It’s time to cease blaming people and design safer roads for pedestrians and drivers.
