Those nasty PEDESTRIANS, out there WALKING all dangerously
Daylighting, which involves removing parked cars from around crosswalks in order to improve visibility and just wiped out about 14,000 street parking spaces, has proved especially controversial.
I commented before about how not having adequate parking space in parking garages results in more people parking on the street, which makes it harder for motorists, bicyclists, and predestrians to see and obstructs the flow of traffic on the streets.
Vehicles getting increasingly-tall exacerbates the issue further, makes them obstruct views more. And I expect that they’re going to keep getting taller as the shift from ICE to hybrid and then to EVs happens, because there’s nowhere else in the vehicle to put the batteries and such.
I don’t like having parked cars right up against entryways or on corners as a pedestrian, a bicyclist, or a motorist. But it’s probably going to happen if there aren’t mandates to provide enough off-street parking.
Building out better transit and reducing the need for cars would be even more effective.
Among other problems that denser housing and better public transit would solve…
My first guess would be that pedestrian improvements are inducing more people to walk, and the increase in total pedestrians is offsetting the improvements in per-pedestrian safety.
Alternate take: All the laws and traffic calming measures in the world do no good if the city has enough motorists and pedestrians who habitually flout them.
Assuming there are some law-abiding pedestrians as well as measure-flouting ones, we would expect to see some reduction in pedestrian deaths if all else remained equal. If we don’t see that, it suggests that something else is actively changing to offset the expected benefit.
You’re starting with the unproved assumption that the new laws actually improve safety for some part of the population.
Law abiding citizens don’t benefit from piling on extra laws.
The law breakers never followed them anyway.
How about taking away blame on either motorists and pedestrians, and putting it all down to risk:
The more cars and the more pedestrians that you put together in an urban area, the more pedestrian car accidents are just bound to happen.
Reduce either of those numbers, and the number of pedestrian car accidents goes down.
