Feet First’s look at pedestrian news for the week of July 29, 2011.
Weekly Walk Around the News
Posted by Derrick Van Kirk
July 29, 2011
Local
Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood has moved up in ranking to the 10th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle. According to the Capitol Hill Seattle blog, the folks at Walk Score decided to redraw the neighborhood’s boundaries which previously included Interlaken Park, thus diminishing the walk score of the neighborhood as a whole. An entire list of Seattle neighborhood walkability rankings can be found here.
National
According to Sara Goodyear of Grist, bad design kills people. In this post, Goodyear explains that when streets are designed for cars, people die. She brings up the fact that victims or in this case mothers of the victim in fatal pedestrian accidents are generally blamed for their actions. Instead, we should challenge the existing infrastructure conditions that lead to these deaths, says Goodyear.
Researchers at the Injury Control Research Center at the University of Alabama suggest that children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at greater risk when crossing the street.
International
A few weeks ago I mentioned a story about the new safety system being installed in new Toyota vehicles that is designed to stop the vehicle before it strikes a pedestrian. This post in PC World actually shows a demonstration of the new system at work.
Sustainability author Chris Turner gives his thoughts about how pedestrian infrastructure as an afterthought, regardless of glaring impracticalities, is better than no pedestrian infrastructure at all. In essence, the only way to avoid this approach is to consider pedestrians during the planning process. Turner also gives a follow up this post here.
According to the Leighton Buzzard Observer in the UK, the latest road safety figures show a substantial decrease in pedestrian deaths when drivers abide by a 30mph speed limit. Over the past decade, many areas have reduced speed limits to 30 mph and have seen significant reductions in pedestrian deaths as a result.
Plans have been unveiled this week for pedestrian friendly signature street the City of Edmonton.
If you come across any interesting pedestrian news or stories, please send a link to derrick@feetfirst.org.
Photo of shoes courtesy of Flickr user blond avenger under the Creative Commons license.