Pedestrian Safety Versus Traffic Flow: Finding the Balance

Abstract

Pedestrian safety is an issue in many urbanized areas throughout the world. While this is recognized by policymakers, many tend to focus more on traffic congestion and finding solutions to improve traffic flow. These two objectives are often in conflict in urban areas. This paper outlines the early history of this conflict in Great Britain and the USA leading up to the development of engineering guidelines focused on improving traffic flow and the level of service in cities, guidelines that are replicated in many developing countries. New safety manuals are being developed and some of the flaws with these are also highlighted, primarily that they tend to ignore behavioral adaptation that can occur in response to safety policies. This is followed by a review of research examining safety trends and policies that have successfully reduced fatalities. This research also suggests that the construction of large arterial and collector roads is counterproductive, despite the recommendations in engineering guidance. Pedestrian casualties and their severity are then discussed, with findings that show that larger, high-speed roads tend to result in more severe injuries and that various features of urban environments are beneficial for pedestrian safety. Various problems with the data available for conducting this type of analysis, especially pedestrian fatality data, make the rigorous tracking of such information problematic. Solutions to improving traffic and pedestrian safety are then highlighted, including shared space concepts, complete streets, and road diets that reduce the flow of traffic. A cost/benefit analysis of a road diet is evaluated showing that for the case studied, the safety benefits are overwhelmingly positive, with only minor costs associated with extra traffic delay. In closing, the implications for rapidly developing countries are briefly discussed with a warning not to follow the path of some western countries.