Residents rally for safer crossings after pedestrian struck, killed in Denver

After two pedestrians were struck - one fatally - in a Denver neighborhood, officials have responded to make the crossing less dangerous. The blog Evidence Soup reports:

"Although it took two years for a nearby block to convince the city to add a crosswalk, within 6 weeks our Public Works folks announced a plan to make this a 24-hour "Safety Zone" - by December they'll be adding signage, speed-monitoring equipment, crosswalks, double yellow lines. "

Blogger Tracy Allison Altman notes that others in the area had been asking the wrong questions and ignoring compelling evidence that neighborhood patterns were changing and more people were out walking. "It's not about cars. It's about pedestrians. . . . Sometimes it's best to draw attention to your evidence without discounting someone else's. Go around them, not at them."

As traffic around the Rte. 9/Rte. 30 retail area worsens this holiday shopping season, will more people try to get form place to place on foot, despite the dangers? I crossed Rte. 30 to Shopper's World on foot last weekend, and for the first time I can recall, I saw another pedestrian out crossing with me. It's time for us, too, to pay more attention to walkers, not only drivers, when designing traffic flow -- before we end up with a similar tragedy.

New pedestrian crossings in town

A look at two upgraded pedestrian crossings in Saxonville, at the McAuliffe branch library and Potter Road/Elm Street.

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'We're eating ourselves to death'

That's the title of a recent blog post from Paul Levy, in which he notes the ludicrous state of the average American meal. "A single sandwich with 1500 calories. A 32-ounce drink from the soda fountain with hundreds more."

One commenter notes that it take more time and money to eat healthy than to eat nutrition-free junk. My response: Of course, part of the reason it costs more to eat healthy than eat junk is U.S. government food policy. Why is it that tobacco and corn production are subsidized but fruit and vegetables are not?

A lot of this is culture - many parts of our society are conditioned to value quantity over quality, so a gigantic plate of mediocre food is "better" than a smaller portion of quality food.

Few of us are taught to value fresh ingredients and quality meals, or the effort that goes into making them. Michael Pollan has some excellent analysis of this in "In Defense of Food."

And, as I noted in a Facebook post responding to the issue of a sedentary society, many Americans' environment makes it all but impossible to walk anywhere. New development patterns cordon off commercial from residential, which means most people can't walk to walk to a grocery store. Most new schools are sited in ways that make it dangerous for kids to walk.

I work less than a mile from major retail centers, but the suburban development patterns are such that you take your life in your hands if you try to make the trip by foot. It's crazy.

It would be illegal under most modern zoning codes to design a pedestrian-friendly development patterned after one of America's great walkable neighborhoods like Boston's Back Bay.

Thursday in Cambridge: Designing for how we move through space

For those interested in the role design has in transportation advocacy, come hear Shauna Gillies - Smith and Mark Pasnik at a presentation hosted by the Boston Society of Architects and LivableStreets Alliance. Thursday, Nov. 12, 7-9 pm at 100 Sidney St., Central Square in Cambridge. $5 suggested donation.

 

Better crosswalks

I'm pleased to see more visible crosswalks in a couple of key pedestrian crossing areas: the dangerous crossing from the parking lot to McAuliffe branch library, and the Potter Road/Elm Street intersection.

At Potter Road there's now a highly visible brick walkway, instead of the yellow lines on the street that seem to wear away after a few months. And there's a slight "raised" walkway now for the library crossing, along with a sidewalk that extends a bit into the walkway to make it visually clearer to drivers that something "unusual" is happening in this part of the street. Hopefully some drivers whipping around the corner from Water Street -- especially those yakking on their cell phones and not paying attention to the fact that people on foot are crossing to and from the library -- will realize they need to be watchful for walkers.

I've been meaning to snap photos of them both, hope to get to that soon.