2006-05-23_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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Average Trip Characteristics by Purpose Puf't:ioseo,f Tr-ip Distance Duration (in- miles) :-, (ili mihute~) To or from work . 0.74 10.86 Work-related business 0.5 9.11 $hopping . 0.44 9.42 C)ther family pi .... 0.45 9.06 p~rsbnal bu~jness $ghool or.church 0.55 I 10.89 . [;lo~tor or .dentist. 0.81 14.80 Y~catiQrii. ........ 1.41 '.18.96 . Visitfrierlds or relatives d.47 '.9.07 (ltber sQc.iator 0134. 12.74 recreational. . .' . Other. . ... .'. . 0.79 12.37 4 Safety Pedestrian safety is a major traffic safety probfem, and one that has typically been overlooked or ignored. This problem is evident in many communities where neighborhood streets are becoming speedways due to so-called "design improvements" which make them wider, or when they are invaded by commuters rushing to work, delivery drivers, or unsafe drivers just looking for a shortcut. Add to this a nearly complete lack of effective speed enforcement, and it comes as no surprise that neighborhoods are being overrun by cars and that fewer people are walking today. Part of the problem is that pedestrian safety has usually been a secondary traffic engineering issue. The overriding goal of traffic engineering has been to improve roadway "level of service" which often means designing roads with wide lanes and shoulders, large turn radii at intersections, passing and turning lanes, and other features that enable more motor vehicles to travel at higher speeds. Few efforts have focused on ensuring that streets are safe for both pedestrians and motor vehicles and fewer still have sought to modify driving behavior to better protect and accommodate pedestrian travel. Increased speeds put pedestrians at higher risk. A ten- mile-per-hour increase in speed, from 20 mph to 30 mph, increases the risk of death for a pedestrian in a collision ninefold. If a car going 20 miles per hour hits a pedestrian, there is a 95 percent chance that the person will survive. However, if the same car is traveling 30 mph, the pedestrian's chances of survival are reduced to 45 percent. Creating walkable communities is a challenge: much of what we've done over the past 50 years-in terms of how we've developed our communities and our transportation facilities- has made it harder to walk and to get to places we might want to go. Still, many people do walk, and there are signs that they'd like to do more of it. We need to give people more choices on how to travel when it comes time to make a trip to the store, to go to school, to go to the park or library, or to visit a friend. We need to make neighborhoods places where parents feel comfortable with their children running around, playing with friends. We need to make our communities places where the elderly and the disabled are free to move around in relative comfort and safety. We need to make the places where we live and the places where we work environments that encourage us to be active - just for the health of it!