New TriState Report Urges Stronger Action for Pedestrian Safety

Bike Walk CT's Executive Director, Kelly Kennedy, was quoted in TriState Transportation Campaign's news release today reporting that Connecticut people aged 60 years and older suffer disproportionately high pedestrian fatality rates.

TriState's new report, Older Pedestrians at Risk: A Ten Year Survey and Look 
Ahead, found that 123 pedestrians aged 60 years and older were killed on Connecticut roads from 2003 through 2012.  Though comprising only 19 percent of the State’s population, this age group accounted for 35 percent of the total pedestrian fatalities in these 10 years. 

“Connecticut’s complete streets law requires municipalities to consider all users in road design and maintenance projects, but few are,” said Kelly Kennedy, Executive Director of Bike Walk Connecticut.   “Cities, towns and counties across the state must be proactive in ensuring that road and bridge projects include pedestrian and bicyclist components like sidewalks and bike lanes,” she added. 

Tri-State recommends that: 

1. ConnDOT should create and fund Safe Routes for Seniors and Safe Routes to Transit programs that implement pedestrian safety improvements in areas with high concentrations of seniors and near transit stops. 
   
2. ConnDOT should redesign Connecticut’s Highway Design Manual, the state’s standard road design reference book, to address the goals and policies of the state’s complete streets law.
   
3. Municipalities should enact complete streets ordinances that require all transportation projects to consider the needs of pedestrians of all ages and abilities. 
   
4. ConnDOT should adopt the National Association of City Transportation Officials’ (NACTO) Urban Street Design Guidelines. The guidelines provide technical standards that departments of transportation can use to create streets that safely accommodate all road users, including pedestrians, bicyclists and transit riders. The Federal Highway Administration, thirty-seven cities, including New York City, and six states have adopted NACTO standards.
   
5. Communities across the state should pursue transit oriented development (TOD), which ensures that housing, shops and offices are in proximity to existing bus and rail routes.
   

 Read the TriState Press Release.  Read the full TriState report.