Regional Pedestrian Safety Summit January 29, 2010

Transportation professionals, local government officials and community pedestrian advocates came together under the auspices of MTC to share ways to reduce pedestrian injury accidents and fatalities at this all-day event.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, a long-time MTC commissioner, gave the opening address at the summit. “I’m an avid walker,” he said. “The reason I’m an avid walker is because I sold my car. I’ve been walking 10,000 steps a day for the last year and a half and it’s changed my life. Pedestrian safety is a real issue – 25 percent of accidents involve pedestrians.”

In a poignant and sobering note near the beginning of the summit, Wendy Alfsen, executive director of California WALKS, introduced family members of 5-year-old kindergartener Zachary Michael Cruz, who was struck and killed in a crosswalk on Feb. 27, 2009 while being escorted by staff from his Berkeley school to an after-school program. His tragic death was one of the catalysts for convening this summit.

David Grant, an MTC citizen advisor, managed to introduce some levity to this serious subject of pedestrian safety. He joked that maybe the conference should have been titled “Run for Your Life!” But in reality, he provided statistics showing that there’s some basis for that call to arms. He compared pedestrian injuries and deaths in the Bay Area to local sickness and death rates for H1N1, the swine flu virus, pointing out that hospitalizations and deaths from H1N1 in San Francisco are less than half the number of pedestrian injuries and deaths. He made a modest proposal: to reduce injury and death rates for pedestrians to at least those for the flu.

Various meaty panels followed, including one on pedestrian planning moderated by Oliver Gajda of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority. Robin Mayhew, Puget Sound Regional Council member, flew in from the Seattle area to brief summit attendees on how her agency made pedestrian planning an integral part of its long-range Vision 2040 plan. John Brazil, City of San Jose, made a compelling case for preparing a pedestrian master plan, and Robert Guerrero of Solano County talked about creative schemes for setting aside a funding pot for pedestrian projects. Summit attendees suggested that all of the information regarding pedestrian policy and engineering standards should be collected and made available on a Web site.

Project checklists – with follow-through to see what enhancements for bicyclists and pedestrians were actually provided – and review of projects and plans by bicycle/pedestrian advisors were some of the recommendations of the Best Practices panel, with Sean Co of MTC and Nora Cody from TransForm. Providing Safe Routes to Schools is not simply an infrastructure problem, but a need to engage parents, students, administrators, teachers, law enforcement and the entire community.

The Solutions panel included Robert Schneider of UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, Meghan Mitman, Fehr and Peers, Ana Validzic, San Francisco Department of Health, and Nancy Baer, Contra Costa County Department of Health. They discussed the merits of studies determining where it’s safe to cross, walking audits, pedestrian safety plans and community outreach to foster public support for pedestrian improvements, as well as the health advantages of walking.

The final panel of the day, Funding Opportunities and Project Delivery, included input from Guerrero, Brazil and Doug Kimsey of MTC. Various funding opportunities were discussed, including Alameda County’s local state tax (5 percent of revenue from this sales tax funds bicycle and pedestrian safety), Regional Measures 1 and 2 and MTC’s Smart Growth/Transportation for Livable Communities program, which supports community-based transportation projects and is available regionally on a competitive basis.

Although much has been accomplished, there was a general consensus by summit participants that a pedestrian master plan to implement a regionwide policy, along with additional funding, will be needed to improve infrastructure and create a sustainable program to ensure increased pedestrian safety throughout the Bay Area.

— Brenda Kahn and Georgia Lambert