By Ruth Rosas

In a historic step, New York Metropolis has decriminalized jaywalking! This new regulation, handed by the Metropolis Council, addresses long-standing issues over the unfair enforcement of jaywalking legal guidelines, particularly on Black and Latine residents who obtain over 90% of jaywalking tickets.

This shift follows comparable strikes by different states and cities, signaling a broader change to how we take into consideration highway security.

From Shared Streets to Jaywalking

Jaywalking legal guidelines are offered as measures of avenue security by limiting when and the place folks can legally cross the road. The concept is that by controlling pedestrian motion, jaywalking reduces the probability of crashes with automobiles. Nonetheless, the real-world effectiveness, impression and historical past of jaywalking legal guidelines inform a unique story.

Earlier than streets had been dominated and tailored to accommodate automobiles, streets had been vibrant, shared locations the place folks walked, stopped and performed freely. Streets weren’t completely designed for a selected mode of transport, as an alternative they had been a spot the place totally different types of visitors coexisted. With the widespread adoption of cars in the beginning of the 1900s, the variety of folks, particularly amongst susceptible teams just like the aged and youngsters, killed by vehicles elevated considerably. 

Cars and dashing had been blamed for these tragic deaths. The auto trade noticed this blame as a menace to their development and launched into strategic campaigns that shamed and ridiculed folks for getting in the best way of automobile visitors. 

Jaywalking is born out of the auto trade defending itself from public criticism and framing strolling on the street as a reckless, and even felony, exercise. These campaigns efficiently co-opted two narratives: 1) pedestrians who crossed exterior crosswalks are silly and irresponsible, labeling them “jaywalkers”, and 2) streets had been not shared areas, they’re areas primarily for vehicles the place pedestrians had been anticipated to remain out of until crossing at designated factors. 

Jaywalking legal guidelines promote car-first mentality underneath the guise of security. These deeply held narratives throughout communities make it difficult to advocate for security measures that really maintain all highway customers secure. 

Who Will get Stopped?

Jaywalking has additionally introduced unintended penalties that disproportionately have an effect on marginalized communities. Regardless of a big share of people that have jaywalked often, these legal guidelines are enforced relying on the placement, time and discretion of the regulation enforcement officer. The discretionary nature of jaywalking regulation enforcement results in biases, whether or not intentional or unintentional. Jaywalking serves as a pretext for police stops which have led to the harassment and arrests of primarily younger Black and brown males.

The criminalization of jaywalking disproportionately impacts people who find themselves already susceptible, reminiscent of these with out secure housing and low-income communities. This downside is compounded by lack of avenue design, reminiscent of poorly-marked crosswalks, sidewalks that finish and unsafe driving habits. Due to this, folks cross the place they really feel secure. Penalizing pedestrians ignores the problems that create unsafe strolling situations within the first place.

Whereas jaywalking legal guidelines weren’t meant to disproportionately punish susceptible communities, racial disparities has change into an surprising and troubling facet impact of their enforcement. Addressing this challenge requires a multifaceted method to pedestrian security, moderately than enforcement practices.

Knowledge reveals that cities that prioritize infrastructure for folks and slowing vehicles down obtain better security outcomes. Broad roads, excessive velocity limits and lack of pedestrian infrastructure have made communities much less walkable, much less accessible and extra harmful for everybody. When cities prioritize police enforcement over avenue redesign, they not solely fail to cut back crashes, accidents and fatalities, however additionally they exacerbate current disparities and inequities in communities. 

A New Method To Road Security

New York’s choice displays a rising recognition that security ought to come from addressing the broader points that contribute to harmful streets. Cities like Hoboken, New Jersey, have achieved zero pedestrian fatalities by specializing in avenue redesign used to boost all types of visitors, prioritizing probably the most susceptible highway customers, these strolling and rolling, moderately than police enforcement. By decriminalizing jaywalking, New York Metropolis joins different cities like Denver and Kansas Metropolis, states like Virginia and California, in shifting the narrative from punishment to sensible, infrastructure-based options.

Although jaywalking legal guidelines have been in place for about 100 years within the U.S. pedestrians are killed every single day by automobiles. Pedestrians will not be killed as a result of they’re jaywalking, they’re killed as a result of their cities and cities lack secure infrastructure, prioritize dashing, distracted driving and the prevalence of SUVs on the highway. 

So decriminalizing is just one step. To completely defend all highway customers, we should put money into people-first avenue design. This implies creating streets with safer crosswalks, decreasing velocity limits, bettering lighting, narrowing roads, pedestrian infrastructure and shifting duty from pedestrians to the constructed setting.

Imagining Streets For Everybody

If we would like safer streets, we have to think about them as locations constructed for everybody. As New York takes this step ahead, we hope that different cities, cities and states will comply with swimsuit, reassessing the function of jaywalking legal guidelines of their communities and start investing in true pedestrian security. 

Decriminalizing jaywalking is a vital step towards reclaiming streets as shared areas the place folks can transfer, stroll, play and thrive with out worry. Decriminalizing jaywalking is greater than a authorized change, it’s a dedication to construct safer, inclusive and accessible streets for everybody.

In the event you’re trying to make a distinction in your group, begin by getting concerned domestically! Throughout the nation, applications like Open Streets and Protected Routes to College give communities the prospect to expertise streets in new methods and help safer public areas. 

One other highly effective motion is advocating to your native authorities for Full Streets and Imaginative and prescient Zero methods, which prioritize infrastructure that slows visitors, enhance pedestrian visibility and work to cut back crashes. For a hands-on, eye-opening expertise, be a part of the Week With out Driving. This initiative lets you join immediately with decision-makers, encouraging them to expertise life in the neighborhood with out a automobile. Connecting with neighbors and native leaders via these actions is a robust method to reshape our streets.

How Can We Assist

In case you are engaged on decriminalizing jaywalking in your city or metropolis, we’re right here to help you! America Walks supplies sources, connections and advocacy methods for constructing safer streets. Attain out to Ruth Rosas at ruth@americawalks.org for steering, instruments or simply to debate your imaginative and prescient. We’d like to be a part of your journey towards creating streets for everybody.

Posted October 30, 2024 in Weblog, Webinars

What are Safer Automobiles?

Over the previous 15 years, the variety of pedestrians killed by automotive crashes has risen by 80 %. Harmful automobiles are one of many main elements of this rising disaster. Automobiles on the highway maintain getting bigger and bigger and the federal government response to requires safer automobiles has been piecemeal and sporadic. Be part of America Walks and our panelists Amy Cohen (Households for Secure Streets), Kea Wilson (Streetsblog USA), and Jodie Medeiros (Stroll SF) for a dialog on the right way to get authorities in any respect ranges to take motion for safer automobiles. 

Webinar studying targets: 

• Perceive the impression of auto design on pedestrian security
• Analyze present governmental insurance policies and gaps in response
• Develop advocacy methods for coverage change

Watch Our Earlier Webinar:

Like all of our webinars, this can be recorded and accessible after the very fact. However you’ll wish to be a part of us in real-time if you happen to can for the chance to ask questions of our company and live-tweet together with us. You’ll additionally obtain ample assets and extra supplies if you happen to RSVP.

Be part of us: Wednesday, November thirteenth

2:00pm – 3:00pm, Japanese

By Rachel Cotner

Individuals are seven occasions extra more likely to actively commute as adults once they expertise strolling, biking, or utilizing transit for transportation at a younger age. The 2024 Protected Routes to College Nationwide Convention highlighted for over 400 attendees the significance of exposing our youth to life exterior a automobile. The convention mascot was a duck. They’re nature’s little strolling faculty bus in any case.

The Mayor of Fort Collins, Jeni Arndt, opened us up by highlighting the priorities of the town as gentle, energy, water, then guaranteeing each route is a protected route to highschool. She invited us to expertise Fort Collins, see what we are able to do higher, and provides suggestions. I didn’t take a look at out each route, but it surely was clear that shifting folks exterior of vehicles was a precedence.

Wes Marshall, creator of Loss of life by a Visitors Engineer, was the primary keynote speaker. Be sure to hit up Island Press for a replica of his e book (or a dozen at hand out to your Metropolis). Wes reminded us that we have to take information with a grain of salt. So usually folks stroll away from crashes and don’t report them in any respect. Low greenback worth crashes are much less more likely to be included in information, dooring crashes don’t often also have a class as a result of the automobile wasn’t shifting. 311 has develop into extra prevalent to request infrastructure enhancements, but it surely’s more likely to be utilized in rich white neighborhoods. They complain extra, so that they get extra mounted. The New York State Court docket of Appeals discovered that municipalities could be held liable for his or her harmful streets, however every new yr Sensible Development America’s Harmful By Design report exhibits us that isn’t occurring.

Taking Us To College

Each session was filled with modern ways in which colleges, municipalities, and organizations are leveraging their coalitions to create safer locations for folks to stroll and roll. The connection between protected routes to highschool, protected routes for seniors, and protected routes for all was sturdy! We noticed so many examples of fast construct to everlasting installations in locations throughout North America. The message behind these initiatives was to start out small, that larger isn’t at all times higher, and that every new mission is an commercial good or dangerous that would result in a surge of improved strolling and rolling throughout city. 

Advocating for devoted funding was one other theme. Locations that retained earmarked protected routes to highschool or various transportation funds had been very possible to make use of these funds and broaden the community house for nondrivers. It’s additionally very important to get to a degree the place weak highway customers rank over vehicles. Sidewalk upkeep is pricey, however so is avenue upkeep, and we don’t hesitate for a second to try this. Throughput by kind of consumer shouldn’t be thought-about in any respect. “You’ll be able to’t justify a bridge by the variety of folks swimming throughout a river.” – @brentToderian 

When there may be cash out there, don’t go away it to probability. Be ready with good plans and mission lists – an lively modes plan, a pedestrian wants evaluation, a faculty transportation evaluation. Search for out of the field companions. Join state DOT with State parks departments. The Lycra people will at all times present up, however the mother and father of faculty age youngsters are essentially the most various group you’ll be able to deliver to the desk. Who delivers the message is KEY. It’s time to get good. A 20 MPH citywide velocity restrict is sort of a assure that granting organizations will take your metropolis critically if you attain exterior for funding.

What Concerning the Children These Days

Does your metropolis embody youth of their planning course of in any respect? Youth journey is integral to multimodal protected journey. When a brand new plan is written, you’re more likely to see footage of households and children within the graphics, however how are youngsters, youth or colleges included within the plan’s design? Kids have much less expertise navigating site visitors and with navigating the errors that drivers make. Ignoring them within the design of our streets is a lethal mistake. Youth stroll for various causes, at completely different occasions of day, and in several methods than adults, and we lose that in aggregated information.

Talking of information, many native faculties and universities have Geographic Info Techniques (GIS) providers ready on your name. Connecting neighborhood issues with college college students to assist remedy the issues can create modern options to issues that cities have been observing for years. GIS can use census information and map information may also help lay the groundwork for our tales. Generally, you will get an entire staff of metropolis officers to come back on a stroll and expertise a spot. Extra usually, you’ll need to have the ability to inform the story greater than as soon as in a compelling option to individuals who won’t ever see your infrastructure. In a grant utility, for instance. Utilizing information alone isn’t at all times compelling, however combining information with storytelling can take somebody to your home.

When Driving Is Not An Possibility

Powerhouse, Anna Zivarts, creator of When Driving Is Not An Possibility, closed out the convention along with her keynote presentation. America Walks lately hosted Anna for a webinar to talk on her new e book (out there at Island Press) and her expertise as a low-vision mother or father shifting around the globe along with her child. That is one other glorious e book at hand over to any choice maker in your metropolis! Anna created the Week With out Driving to encourage choice makers and elected officers to expertise what 30% of the inhabitants do day-after-day. In 2023, she introduced it to America Walks to encourage a nationwide viewers to maneuver by way of their locations with out driving. 

Anna spoke on the non-binary nature of driving. Just about everyone seems to be a nondriver in some unspecified time in the future throughout their day even when that’s the stroll from the car parking zone to the automobile. An influence chair consumer may use a automobile that gained’t permit their chair to suit. They will nonetheless drive, however might keep within the automobile till they return house. Some older adults don’t drive at nighttime resulting from points with headlights and evening imaginative and prescient. Of transit riders, Black riders are 3x extra more likely to be nondrivers, and immigrant riders are 7x extra more likely to be nondrivers. Till they’re sufficiently old to drive, 100% of our youth are nondrivers. Even once they attain a authorized age, many younger folks need to have the ability to get round and not using a automobile. Vehicles include funds, taxes, insurance coverage, upkeep and gas prices, and so they shouldn’t be a prerequisite to the liberty to maneuver. As a society, we low cost the mobility of youngsters as a result of it’s a brief standing, however so many seniors are invisible as a result of they’ll’t go away their properties. 

It’s time to personal the truth that our bike and stroll organizations may do a greater job of working with folks exterior of the same old advocacy circles. Go and become involved with incapacity communities, with immigrant communities, and with youth and senior communities. All of us profit from much less vehicles, and from much less quick vehicles, however making a protected bike lane as a right for a way different folks might transfer by way of the house is asking for a type of dangerous commercial conditions I discussed above. Collectively we are able to change the world! 

Posted October 17, 2024 in Weblog

A brand new roundup of Walkability Wins. This month we’re showcasing the motion by highlighting extra locations throughout the nation who’re reworking mobility and advancing pedestrian-friendly agendas.

Indianapolis, Indiana

Earlier this month, Indianapolis officers adopted a citywide Imaginative and prescient Zero ordinance that commits the consolidated city-county to attain zero deadly or critical accidents on our transportation community by 2035. The ordinance (right here) outlines the institution of a 15-member activity power, the hiring of a full-time Imaginative and prescient Zero administrator, and the event of a Imaginative and prescient Zero motion plan. The proposal loved bipartisan assist by the 25-member Metropolis-County Council and is funded in Mayor Joe Hogsett’s proposed 2025 price range.

Shout out to Well being By Design for this superb Win!

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee’s latest traffic-calming tasks are proving to be successful, lowering rushing and creating safer streets for all. By implementing visitors circles, curb extensions, and guarded bike lanes, the town has seen a marked lower in reckless driving. Knowledge from 14 tasks present much less rushing, with important reductions in extreme rushing—these going greater than 10 mph over the restrict.

Austin, Texas

Imaginative and prescient Zero’s initiative in Austin to boost protected left turns at 100 places has considerably diminished visitors accidents and fatalities, exhibiting a 47% to 72% lower in left-turn associated crashes since 2022. These enhancements are a vital a part of Austin’s broader effort to remove visitors deaths and critical accidents, using small however efficient upgrades like higher signage and sign timing. These interventions not solely diminish particular crash sorts, but additionally broadly improve intersection security.

West Hollywood, California

The California Air Assets Board (CARB) has granted West Hollywood $8.2 million to enhance pedestrian and bike security by eradicating a automobile lane and parking for wider sidewalks and guarded bike lanes. This challenge is designed to scale back transportation emissions and enhance entry to important providers whereas supporting community-led clear mobility efforts in areas most affected by air pollution and historic underinvestment.

New York Metropolis, New York

New York Metropolis is implementing diminished pace limits in 15 crash-prone areas of the Bronx below Sammy’s Legislation, named after a younger crash sufferer. This regulation grants the town authority over pace limits, beforehand managed by the state. Speeds will likely be lowered to twenty and even 10 mph in some zones. Sidewalk extensions are additionally being added to boost pedestrian security.

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To atone for earlier installments of Walkability Wins, go to our weblog. Have a win? Ship it to us: social@americawalks.org.

Posted October 7, 2024 in Weblog

Our in style stay month-to-month webinars can’t probably accommodate all of the content material related to advancing walkability. So we’re launching an on-demand video sequence that we’re calling “The Technical Collection”.  Pre-recorded with main professionals, our imaginative and prescient is to current matters that permit a deeper dive into the main points of insurance policies, implementation or finest practices.  Our purpose is to assist advance the information of practitioners within the subject, whereas concurrently de-mystifying matters for neighborhood advocates.

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So what are we speaking about?  Listed here are our first 4 technical sequence webinars:

Understanding the New Handbook on Uniform Site visitors Management Units (MUTCD)

Offered by Matthew Roe, Senior Affiliate, Mobility Planning & Design at Stantec and former Technical Lead at NACTO, and Mike McGinn, Govt Director at America Walks

At America Walks we name the MUTCD “an important pedestrian security doc you will have by no means heard of.” However truly, for those who work on avenue design as knowledgeable or an advocate it has most actually come to your consideration for the way it shapes our native streets. On this two half sequence, Matthew Roe, previously Technical Lead at NACTO and now with Stantec, takes us by way of the numerous revisions not too long ago adopted.

Half 1: Understanding the New MUTCD – Pace Limits, Crosswalk Markings & Sidewalk Extensions, Asphalt Artwork, Alerts & Warrants

Half 2: Understanding the New MUTCD – Bike Infrastructure

A Framework for Integrating Land Use and Transportation

Offered by Ian Lockwood, Livable Transportation Engineer at Toole Design, and Mike McGinn, Govt Director at America Walks

Ian Lockwood takes us by way of his conceptualization of how planners, neighborhood members, and leaders can deal with the inherently associated matters of land use and transportation. Transferring by way of historic shifts in transportation planning (from historic cities to the appearance of ideas like LOS, VMT, and the Common Equation), you’ll discover ways to plan walkable, equitable, and memorable locations.

Mapping Excessive Harm Streets

Offered by Theja Putta, PhD, Analyst III at Toole Design, Sarah Abel, Sustainable Security Observe Lead at Toole Design and Mike McGinn, Govt Director at America Walks

Discover ways to use the Safer Streets Precedence Finder, an open supply instrument to establish the streets in your neighborhood which have the best danger to pedestrians and different avenue customers.

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Proper now we’re providing the technical sequence webinars totally free – all that we ask for is a registration – however we anticipate that we could migrate this to premium content material for our members solely as we add to the video library.

And in case you are knowledgeable considering working with us to develop further content material, tell us. We hope you benefit from the movies and we’re grateful to Toole Design and the Nationwide Affiliation of Metropolis Transportation Officers for sharing their experience with us and also you!

Posted October 3, 2024 in Weblog

It’s Wednesday of the Week With out Driving, and with over 450 taking part organizations, the engagement has tripled! We’re excited that just about 500 elected officers and determination makers are taking part, together with 1000’s of people signed up. Listed below are a number of the highlights we’ve seen to this point.

Articles:

Recognizing Nondrivers Can Spur a Revolution on the Urbanist Weblog. A fantastic reflection on why folks discover it arduous to consider there are such a lot of nondrivers – and easy methods to begin eager about the nondrivers in all our lives. Together with the drivers who see automobiles as freedom, however will age out of driving!

Don’t Neglect About Non-Drivers in Rural America:  “Too typically, advocates for lowering car-dependency focus solely on dense city areas. However in doing so, they write off an excessive amount of of our nation and low cost the fact of too many non-drivers.”

Mother and father Battle To Observe the #WeekWithoutDriving: Okay, this one is a yr outdated, however the battle is actual – a mirrored image on parenting and driving from our mates at StrongTowns 

Social Media Movies:

Our mates at Good Progress America put collectively this nice video, and a supporting weblog put up

Incapacity Mobility Initiative interviewing Actual Change Distributors on what issues to them https://x.com/non_drivers/standing/1840403172109762924

On TikTok, Jonathan Stalls,  @pedestriandignity,  mentioning the dearth of walkable streets close to a transit station, cultural facilities and a state DOT workplace! By the best way, you can too discover Jonathon providing stroll management coaching via Walk2Connect.

There are additionally some nice movies throughout social media, like this from content material creators like @mobilityforwho in Santa Monica, metropolis governments like OahuMPO in Honolulu, transit businesses like Ben Franklin Transit in Richland, WA, neighborhood leaders like Jonathan Desmarais from Pittsburg and elected leaders like Chicago Alderman Daniel La Spata.

Podcast:

The Hacks and Wonks podcast interviews Cecelia Black (Incapacity Rights Washington) and Ruth Rosas (America Walks) to place a highlight on why Week With out Driving exists, and all of the work being put in by organizations and advocates. 

What’s inspiring you this week?  What did we miss? Tell us, and thanks to your engagement!

Posted September 24, 2024 in Weblog, Webinars

The Secure Techniques Pyramid

Possibly you might be aware of the Secure Techniques strategy. However does it sufficiently prioritize what’s essential? 

The Secure Techniques Pyramid is an up to date strategy to site visitors security that takes established epidemiological approaches to determine the reason for demise and damage (spoiler alert – it’s the velocity, form, and mass of automobiles) and easy methods to interrupt its unfold. Thus, the Secure Techniques Pyramid takes a extra centered strategy to site visitors security than the Secure Techniques Method, and helps keep away from a false equivalence between engineering, training and enforcement. A broad spectrum of security professionals and advocates are urging transportation companies to formally undertake the Secure Techniques Pyramid.

Our panelists are Dr. Dave Ederer of the CDC, who developed the Pyramid, and Steph Leonard, who companions throughout state companies in Colorado to implement the pyramid.

The Secure Techniques Pyramid webinar studying targets: 

• Perceive the Secure Techniques Pyramid, and the way it differs from the Secure Techniques strategy and the Three E’s of Engineering, Training and Enforcement.
• Perceive what a public well being and epidemiological strategy in transportation security is, and why it’s applicable
• Find out about alternatives to include the Secure Techniques Pyramid into skilled or advocacy work, Together with incorporating the Secure Techniques Pyramid right into a Secure Techniques Method, to forestall watering down of the Secure Techniques Method.

Watch Our Earlier Webinar:

Like all of our webinars, this will probably be recorded and obtainable after the actual fact. However you’ll need to be a part of us in real-time should you can for the chance to ask questions of our friends and live-tweet together with us. You’ll additionally obtain ample sources and extra supplies should you RSVP.

Be a part of us: Tuesday, October fifteenth

2:00pm – 3:00pm, Japanese

Posted September 10, 2024 in Weblog

By Ben Crowther

The state of California is near taking a big step towards safer streets. Earlier this month, the California legislature handed a invoice requiring all new automobiles to come back with Clever Velocity Help, a confirmed know-how that helps drivers follow the velocity restrict. Now, it’s as much as Governor Newsom to make the invoice legislation. 

What precisely would the legislation do? Beginning in 2030, SB 961 would require new automobiles to alert drivers after they’re going greater than 10 mph over the velocity restrict. This know-how, Clever Velocity Help (ISA), depends on both cameras or GPS to trace the velocity restrict. ISA has been round for years and the European Union already requires it in new automobiles. California’s auto market is massive sufficient that if the invoice turns into legislation, producers will seemingly set up ISA on all new automobiles nationwide. Polling signifies the American public welcomes ISA.

The invoice is sorely wanted. Over 10,000 Californians are killed or significantly injured in automotive crashes yearly. Round one-third of those fatalities and accidents are associated to dashing. Clever Velocity Help is confirmed security know-how that addresses lethal dashing. Rushing is particularly lethal for pedestrians, the place a distinction of some miles per hour adjustments the probability of whether or not or not an individual will likely be killed or significantly injured if a automotive hits them.

At America Walks, we’ve been encouraging state and municipal governments to construct acceptance for ISA and reveal their dedication to security by retrofitting their fleets with the know-how. The California invoice takes this work to the subsequent degree. Governor Newsom has till September 30 to signal SB 961. In the event you dwell in California, inform Governor Newsom to signal the invoice and curb lethal dashing at the moment, with only one click on!
 

Posted September 5, 2024 in Weblog

By Emilie Bahr

I noticed a teaser to an article in Journey + Leisure journal lately declaring a sure southern metropolis probably the most walkable within the U.S. As an nearly lifelong southerner and energetic transportation nerd, the headline caught my consideration, as did the picture that accompanied it: Wrought-iron balconies dripping in ferns. Brightly-hued stucco facades on beautiful outdated buildings. Might they be speaking about my hometown? I puzzled. 

I clicked on the hyperlink to find that, in reality, New Orleans was being held up as probably the most walkable metropolis within the nation – the fourth most walkable on the earth! And I laughed out loud. 

I’m a proud Crescent Metropolis partisan. I’m ever able to make the case for my metropolis’s significance and exceptionalism and have been identified to recite to guests and newcomers the Tennessee Williams quote all longtime New Orleanians know by coronary heart: “America has solely three cities: New York, San Francisco and New Orleans…” 

New Orleans appears, sounds, tastes and feels in contrast to anyplace else on this nation, if not the planet. However in the event you come right here anticipating to search out the “most walkable” metropolis, you might be more likely to be about as stunned as you’d in the event you got here anticipating to search out the “best” or “least humid” or “most teetotaling.” 

Naming New Orleans “most walkable” is a testomony, maybe, to simply how unhealthy off the American panorama is for walkability, although I might simply tick off a handful of locations better-suited to the mantle (together with, because it so occurs, New York and San Francisco.)  

It’s true that New Orleans is extra walkable than your common American metropolis. It’s outdated, based in 1718, round a century earlier than the arrival of the Mannequin T, and we profit from a transportation community and footprint that had been largely established earlier than the arrival of the automobile. There are a lot of neighborhoods wherein it’s potential to stroll to get locations, and in some elements of city, these walks might be fairly nice. We’re additionally a poor metropolis with a charge of automobile possession that’s under the nationwide common, leaving many no alternative however to get round by foot, bike or transit. 

Even so, I’m sorry to say that now we have turned our metropolis over to automobiles about as a lot as every other, as an unsuspecting vacationer from Seattle or Portland will uncover upon trying to cross the road; because the Metropolis Council made clear just a few years in the past when its French Quarter consultant efficiently argued for the elimination – at important expense – of a protected bike lane in one other a part of his district; and as we see 12 months after 12 months in a pedestrian fatality charge that stands among the many highest within the nation. 

Just a few weeks in the past, the newly-minted police chief, a girl whom I’ve met and respect, made headlines for putting two pedestrians along with her police automobile within the French Quarter. The information protection centered on the truth that she handed a breathalyzer check performed per protocol and that the pedestrians had been apparently going to be okay. I anticipated that the incident may spark new requires restrictions on driving by the Vieux Carre – the oldest and most-visited neighborhood within the metropolis and one constructed fairly actually for strolling – one thing the mayor unsuccessfully lobbied for just a few years again. 

As an alternative, the feedback posted on social media spoke to our auto myopia. 

“Pedestrians deal with the French Quarter prefer it’s some type of pedestrian mall,” learn a consultant one. 

A part of me needs that Journey + Leisure had declared my tourism-dependent metropolis the worst for pedestrians. Possibly that will have gotten coverage makers’ consideration. 

Posted August 28, 2024 in Weblog

Inform Us Your Inspiring Tales of Neighborhood Options to the Faculty Drop Off Line!

It’s again to highschool time! And as everyone knows, in our car-dependent tradition, this thrilling time of 12 months additionally brings traffic-clogged streets and an enormous time and power suck for fogeys caught within the carpool slog.

The varsity 12 months began out with tales of communities utterly eliminating bus companies for college kids. There are a lot of advantages to children strolling to highschool, however have we created an setting that makes that snug? Confronted with a tough tradeoff, many mother and father tackle the time and expense of utilizing private automobiles to get children to highschool. The strains get even longer. The streets much less secure to stroll. It’s a nasty cycle. There needs to be a greater manner!

Are you strolling again to highschool?

We all know there are mother and father, academics, faculties, and cities on the market making strolling and biking to highschool enjoyable and safer for teenagers whereas additionally serving to to scale back gridlock and air pollution, and we’re hoping to spherical up a few of these tales for attainable inclusion in our weblog.