Road Design Nearly Killed A Young Girl
I jump into my vehicle to travel to a meeting, turning onto our community's main historic street.
In a quarter mile, I pass through a major intersection. The street loses its historic character and becomes an expansive road. It is morning rush hour, and the road is filled with cars that are transporting people into their day. In the distance is this intersection.
Off to the left side appears a young girl (11-12 years old), standing with her bicycle, waiting to cross the street. The girl is wearing a recognizable t-shirt worn by all summer counselors for our city's rec department. My two older daughters wore this same t-shirt when they worked for the rec department at this girl's age. I know this young girl is traveling from her home to cross the street to the nearby middle school for her summer job. I slow down and stop my vehicle to allow her to cross.
The morning rush of automobiles queues up behind me. The drivers coming from the opposite direction don't immediately stop. The girl looks left to right. Moments later, a driver from the opposite direction stops their vehicle, as I have, to allow the girl to cross. Cars begin queuing up behind this stopped vehicle.
She remains on the curb and looks left to right. A person driving their car, moving at a high rate of speed, passes me on the right and moves through the intersection. The girl waits. Another person passes me on the right and moves through the intersection. The girl still waits. A third driver passes on my right, zooming past the waiting girl.
She looks left to right. More rush-hour cars are queuing behind me and the driver on the other side. The girl looks left to right again. She now moves into the intersection.
A person driving at an even higher rate of speed barrels past me on the right. The girl is in the middle of the lane. She moves forward just before the driver passes between her and the curb. She is no more than a few feet from the automobile.
She is my daughter, your daughter, your granddaughter, your niece, your cousin, your friend, and your classmate. I have never been witness to such road violence. It was sickening. As for the girl, I cannot imagine the trauma.
In 2022, over 46,000 people were killed on our roadways. These are our children, our parents, our siblings, our relations, and our friends. The driver was moving at such a high rate of speed that death, had she been struck, is likely.
If not death, the girl would have joined the 5.2 million people in 2022 injured on our roadways. This immense pain, suffering, and cost is preventable because driver behavior is primarily regulated by road design. Road design nearly killed this girl.
Here's the street I turned on to:
And here's what the street becomes:
This road was designed exclusively for speed, with little consideration for the human, historical, environmental, and cultural context of the place. The stripped "bike lane" and "parking lane" only function as another travel lane for vehicles (with even more space for speed).
Nearly all of our roadways need to be redesigned and this work can begin simply, quickly and for little cost. Here's an experiment being conducted one mile away:
Simple, cheap orange barrels stop all right-side passing. And several blocks away, here's an improvement that followed an earlier experiment:
These "bump outs" prevent right-side passing, shorten the crossing distance for those walking and signal to everyone that this is a place for more than fast-moving vehicles.
As for the scene of the crime, I can design, in minutes, an improvement that would have prevented the near maiming of that young girl:
These jersey barriers can be placed at this spot within a few hours. Doing so would guarantee safe crossing for anyone walking and biking across this intersection.
You, too, can design such an improvement in your community. You, too, can demand changes be made now. We must. 46,000 dead. We cannot tolerate more than 1.