Urbanism, architecture, transit, strawmen, etc.

[flyingember]

I actually lived at this apartments. (decent place to live) we drove to the office, which is absurd to need to do.

that whole corridor is horribly done. from 169 to Riverside could be a decent mixed use corridor if it was just refocused to being pedestrian friendly.

[KCMax]

Star: Here and elsewhere, streets have become more hazardous for pedestrians

The number of pedestrian accidents is climbing across the Kansas City region, up 7 percent in 2012 from 2008. Nationwide, pedestrian accidents — injuries and fatalities combined — are up 10 percent.

The statistics puzzle local transportation planners. The increases are occurring at the same time they are recording fewer deadly crashes involving drunk driving, distracted driving and aggressive driving.

More pedestrian crashes are a result of how we’ve developed, building wider roads designed more for moving traffic than ensuring safe pedestrians, said David Goldberg, spokesman for Smart Growth America, an anti-sprawl group.

“We have to go back and fix our streets so they’re safe for everybody,” Goldberg said.

A new study done by Smart Growth America recently ranked the most dangerous places for walking. Kansas City was 21st.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Too bad you didn't add:

The study also dug into causes of those crashes. One alarming trend surfaced: Pedestrians might not be aware of their surroundings.

Many times, walkers share some of the blame. Inattention and a failure to yield to traffic were among the leading causes when pedestrians contributed to accidents.

Consider these examples from the police files:

At the end of May, a Kansas City woman suffered a scraped elbow when she was hit by a car as she darted out from behind a parked truck near the intersection of Truman Road and Bennington Avenue about 7:30 p.m.

Last July in Overland Park, a Jeep Grand Cherokee slammed into a 24-year-old Grandview man crossing Metcalf Avenue about 4:30 p.m. The pedestrian rolled onto the hood and off the side of the vehicle, and he suffered a “significant” head injury. Police said the man was jaywalking.

In May 2011, an Overland Park man jogging on 119th Street was hit by a driver leaving Menorah Medical Center about 11:30 a.m. The runner suffered numerous cuts and bruises. Police said the man should have yielded to the vehicle because it had a green light.

“The driver’s got some responsibility for paying attention to what’s going on while they are operating a motor vehicle,” said Ron Achelpohl, interimtransportation co-director for the Mid-America Regional Council. “But the pedestrian also has the responsibility to be aware of their environment.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... rylink=cpy

[phuqueue]

Always a good idea to blame the victim

[KCMax]

Too bad you didn't add:

Why is that "too bad"? Yes, responsibility lies on the driver and pedestrian. But only one of those parties will suffer injury and/or death. Maybe we should do something systematically to reduce this?

[pash]

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[AlbertHammond]

I had meetings today in south Leawood. We decided to walk to lunch just one block away. It was a miserable experience walking thru parking lots and landscape buffer areas. Everything from door to door was terrible from a pedestrian experience.

Keep in mind this is in Leawood, where everything is "perfect" and the planning regulations are over the top. They require super fancy building materials, tons of landscape, huge 4" caliper trees, irrigation everywhere. ...but they don't require good building massing, good connectivity or good incentive to take foot instead of taking a car everywhere. Even trips of one block.

[LenexatoKCMO]

[quote="AlbertHammond"]I had meetings today in south Leawood. We decided to walk to lunch just one block away. It was a miserable experience walking thru parking lots and landscape buffer areas. Everything from door to door was terrible from a pedestrian experience.

Keep in mind this is in Leawood, where everything is "perfect" and the planning regulations are over the top. They require super fancy building materials, tons of landscape, huge 4" caliper trees, irrigation everywhere. ...but they don't require good building massing, good connectivity or good incentive to take foot instead of taking a car everywhere. Even trips of one block.[/quote]
The great irony is that they celebrate their onerous building and zoning codes as smart management but if anyone dared suggest implementing stricter requirements for bike/ped accomodation there would be great howls about intrusive business-hating regulation. Its OK to regulate minutiae like the font size on McDonalds drive through sign but god forbid you tell them they have to connect the front door to the sidewalk.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Always a good idea to blame the victim

When did I say always? Or what was contained in the quote? As in those cases, it appears to be the fault of the person who did get hurt. It is not always the case of the driver causing the accident which seemed to be what was implied by the original post.

Hopefully you do understand that sometimes the one getting hit has some fault. They too talk on cell phones and read/send texts when walking, or just plain ignore the dangers of their actions.

[chaglang]

Urbanism, architecture, transit, strawmen, etc.

[earthling]

I think it's because the dam is made of a combination of rock and sand.

Enhanced with little fluffy clouds, that's neat because I used to look at them all the time...
little fluffy clouds
little fluffy clouds
they were long and clear and yellow and on fire and the clouds would catch the colors from everywhere...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHixChYgGRI&feature=kp

[phuqueue]

Always a good idea to blame the victim

When did I say always? Or what was contained in the quote? As in those cases, it appears to be the fault of the person who did get hurt. It is not always the case of the driver causing the accident which seemed to be what was implied by the original post.

Hopefully you do understand that sometimes the one getting hit has some fault. They too talk on cell phones and read/send texts when walking, or just plain ignore the dangers of their actions.

Sometimes you do something dangerous because it's your best available option (as pash explains in his post), but the one who poses a disproportionate threat (that is, the one hurtling down the street in a giant steel box) needs to be held to a higher standard. Here in New York de Blasio is pushing his Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic deaths, which kicked off a few months ago with a surge in tickets for jaywalking. Another component of the plan is to lower the citywide speed limit to 25 mph, which would be great, except the speed limit isn't the problem -- the problem is that it's never enforced. The avenues are basically expressways. Red lights are just recommendations. The other day I was crossing an intersection (59th St & 1st Ave) with two left turn lanes -- somebody pulled into the far left, sped up through the intersection (cutting off the other left turn lane as a line of cars was attempting to use it), crossed through a bike lane, and pulled back into traffic. An NYPD traffic cop sat and watched the entire thing happen. And this is in one of the most pedestrian-friendly cities in the country.

A pedestrian is much less likely to be struck if he doesn't jaywalk, but jaywalking is not really the reason pedestrians are struck. Pedestrians are struck because we as a country have given our streets over to cars, to the exclusion of other modes (if you think it's dangerous to be a pedestrian, see how harrowing it is to ride a bicycle). People jaywalk all the time in Europe too, but pedestrian fatality rates (per 100,000 inhabitants) are much lower (all numbers from 2011: 1.04 in Austria, 1.02 in Belgium, 0.6 in Denmark, 0.77 in Finland, 0.8 in France, 0.75 in Germany, 1.97 in Greece, 1.25 in Hungary, 1.25 in Iceland, 1.04 in Ireland, 0.97 in Italy, 1.2 in Luxembourg, 0.44 in the Netherlands, 0.35 in Norway, 1.88 in Portugal, 1.05 in Slovenia, 0.82 in Spain, 0.56 in Sweden, 0.88 in Switzerland, and 0.74 in the UK, vs. 1.43 in the US). From these raw numbers you can't really tease out how much of that difference is due to fewer people driving overall vs. people who are driving doing it more carefully, but of course, the relatively higher preference for non-car modes is another product of planning policies in those countries, not a confounding factor that undermines their stats.

It's true that if I jaywalk, I'm more likely to be hit by a car. And if I don't look for traffic before I step into the street, I'm even more likely to be hit. But holding pedestrians responsible for pedestrian fatalities is counterproductive. A pedestrian who needs to cross the street is going to cross the street, even if the street is specifically engineered to discourage him from doing it. If the nearest signaled intersection is a half mile away and your destination is directly across the street (this isn't a scenario that would arise in NYC, but it's quite common across the rest of the country), most of the time you're not going to walk that mile out of your way to travel five hundred feet. You can say the pedestrian shouldn't have jaywalked, but the pedestrian's not the one who created this confluence of circumstances. We should be able to move about our cities without facing mortal danger.

[aknowledgeableperson]

So it isn't the jaywalker's fault, especially if he/she enters the street and the driver doesn't have the distance to stop, it is the street's fault. All that I can say is OMG.

[phuqueue]

It's good that OMG is all you can say, usually you do yourself quite a disservice by trying to say anything more.

[smh]

It's good that OMG is all you can say, usually you do yourself quite a disservice by trying to say anything more.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Well, for some of your mostly stupid in the response that was the best I could do at the time. I guess if you can blame the street for an accident that is the responsibility of the jaywalker then I guess the driver of a vehicle can use the same excuse. I can see it now. A driver states an accident wasn't his fault, street design was the reason the person who was hit choose to jaywalk. What about the people who own the cars the walker darted between to enter the traffic? Don't they have some fault for parking on the street? Do we blame the traffic light if a walker crosses on red and is hit?

Your take just absolves the walker of any and all responsibility for an accident of his/her making.

Or maybe the walker who causes the accident can use the excuse that the Geraldine character of Flip Wilson used as an excuse. "The devil made me do it."

[Highlander]

Americans have a typical car-centric attitude towards pedestrian accidents. In Europe, hit a pedestrian with a car and its pretty much your fault. Period. None of this, "well, she ran out in front of me" crap - if you are in an area with pedestrians, the expectation is that drivers will slow down to account for the unexpected. Same with bicycles - don't hit one - because its your fault if you do. I'll tell you as someone that has driven all over the continent; it makes you careful - very careful! In the US, where crosswalks are pretty much uniformly ignored (e.g. 47th on the plaza), drivers can't be bothered long enough to consider that the 4000 pounds of steel surrounding them make them an incredibly deadly weapon.

[pash]

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[pash]

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[chaglang]

My proudest moment as a Ragger.