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Get There Fast or Safe? A Crowdsourced Map Gives You the Option

Chandni Doulatramani

June 29, 2021 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: India, Gurgaon

In 71 cities around the world, users of the My Safetipin mobile app can decide whether to visit a particular neighborhood or plan a travel route based on how safe others deem those places. While the 100,000 or so users, more than half in India, constitute too small a user base to make the mapping app truly universal, its crowdsourced data already have prompted the Delhi and Bogota governments to improve street lighting on streets deemed unsafe because they are not well lit. The app's primary goal is to make the streets safer for women.

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Can ‘Open Streets' Outlast the Pandemic?

John Surico

April 29, 2021 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Many cities created "open streets" during the pandemic, limiting traffic on certain streets to give people a safe outdoor place to relax and play. Which programs outlive the pandemic depends on a host of factors, most especially how community-led the programs are. In Queens' Jackson Heights neighborhood, a densely populated community with many immigrants, closing a major street didn't work when police were at the barricades. But, under the leadership of the community, the daily closure turned into a street party and community-building event that is causing the city to rethink basic urban-planning concepts.

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Las Vegas's Traffic School for Pedestrians

Taylor Moore

April 16, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Las Vegas, Nevada

In Las Vegas, pedestrians and drivers ticketed for unsafe behavior can get their fines voided by taking a three-hour class called PedSAFE. More than 2,800 people have taken the class and, say its sponsors from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, graduate with a better understanding of how to keep pedestrians safe on Las Vegas' wide, pedestrian-unfriendly streets. While helpful, the program does not address more long-lasting fixes, such as ending racially inequitable jaywalking enforcement and designing safer streets.

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In South Bend, Pete Buttigieg challenged a decades-old assumption that streets are for cars above all else

Ian Duncan

January 16, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, South Bend, Indiana

Reconfiguring streets to slow automobile traffic through its downtown business district and encourage pedestrians and bicycling enlivened South Bend's street life and proved a boon to its restaurants and other businesses. Then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg pushed for the $25 million plan to make the streets safer and encourage people to spend more time and money in the area. Drivers complained about increased travel time, as they have about other cities’ “complete streets” programs. But Buttigieg and his supporters hope to push the concept when he runs the federal Transportation Department.

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The U.S. Could Make New Cars a Lot Less Deadly

David Zipper

January 06, 2021 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

American cars made since the early 1980s have carried ratings from the federal New Car Assessment Program, showing how risky they are to human life in a crash. NCAP ratings motivated a host of safety enhancements by manufacturers. Since the 1990s, similar programs in the European Union, China, Australia, Korea, and Japan have also rated vehicles' risks to pedestrians and bicyclists, and their fatalities have dropped. Not so in the U.S., where industry resistance has stalled expansion of NCAP ratings. Advocates hope the Biden Transportation Department will finally expand the program.

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‘Slow Streets' Disrupted City Planning. What Comes Next?

Laura Bliss

January 06, 2021 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Durham, North Carolina

When city planners rushed early in the pandemic to close streets to automobile traffic in order to give residents a safe space to roam outdoors, they ended up learning lessons entirely apart from their original goals rooted in public health and traffic safety. In Durham, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Oakland, community groups pushed back at the cities' initial failures to consider the opinions of communities of color whose neighborhoods were affected by the changes. The pushback led to collaborations and modified plans that redefined the problems at issue and the ways to address them.

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How Oakland Got Real About Equitable Urban Planning

Rikha Sharma Rani

October 08, 2020 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

Oakland is making an effort to make city planning more equitable to include the needs of communities of color. "Esential Places" is the second iteration of a program that started off as "Slow Streets" and was criticized by local residents for catering to "white and moneyed interests." The initial attempt was informed by survey respondents who were overwhelmingly white and rich. Meetings with community members in distressed neighborhoods resulted in different traffic challenges and pedestrian needs. The shift in policy planning has led to safer intersections with no collisions at previously dangerous sites.

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Do We Need Police To Curb L.A.'s Traffic Violence? Some Cities Are Saving Lives Without Them

Ryan Fonseca

September 24, 2020 |

LAist |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

Five years after Los Angeles launched its Vision Zero program to reduce traffic fatalities, the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists killed on city streets have soared. By relying too heavily on the racially fraught and often ineffective practice of police stops of vehicles, and by not spending enough on street redesigns and automated enforcement technologies, L.A. has failed to make the kind of progress that cities like New York and Seattle have made with engineering innovations, stricter speed limits, and camera enforcement.

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Zero bikers or pedestrians were killed by cars in Oslo last year: What can the U.S. learn from its success?

Adele Peters

January 09, 2020 |

FastCompany |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: Norway, Oslo

Oslo, Norway saw zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths in 2019. The success comes from infrastructure redesign, increased traffic enforcement, overall policy prioritization of road safety, and collaboration between residents, organizations, and government. In the United States, many cities are working toward “Vision Zero” – zero pedestrian and cycling deaths – and are looking to Oslo as an example.

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What Happens When a City Tries to End Traffic Deaths

Laura Bliss

November 21, 2019 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Multi-Media |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

An extensive investigation that, despite implementing an initiative called "Vision Zero" that aims to eliminate traffic and pedestrian fatalities, many cities still struggle to reduce the number of fatalities, year-over-year. Now, cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. are analyzing their failures - from lack of budget planning to missing coordination between government departments - in order to get on track to eliminating traffic deaths within a decade.

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