To prevent traffic fatalities, we must rethink road design
https://sanantonioreport.org/roadway...ic-fatalities/
San Antonio’s traffic fatalities need some serious attention.
Roughly 4,480 people were killed on Texas roads in 2021, making it the second deadliest year on record. Speeding, alcohol and distracted driving are just some of the causes of increasing fatality rates in Bexar County.
The Federal Highway Administration designates San Antonio as a “Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Focus City” because it has one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the United States. The traffic fatality rate was 9.76 fatalities per 100,000 population in 2019, with pedestrians making up more than a quarter of fatalities.
This comes at a time when traffic fatalities are reaching new highs across the country. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has stated, “The status quo is unacceptable,” and that “zero is the only acceptable number of deaths and serious injuries on our roadways.“ Likewise, Congress has introduced House Resolution 565 expressing the desire to “reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2050.”
While the loss of life is always a tragedy, this is also an economic issue. According to a 2011 study by the American Automobile Association, the economic cost of accidents is over three times that of traffic congestion. In San Antonio, the study estimated the cost of traffic accidents to be nearly seven times the costs of congestion, or $4.3 billion per year in 2009.
In 2019, the Texas Transportation Commission adopted a goal of a 50% reduction in fatalities on Texas roads by 2035, reaching zero fatalities by 2050. Locally, the City of San Antonio and the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Association have active Vision Zero efforts but apparently without any target dates for reaching the goal.
One important area for change is roadway design. For decades, the roadways were designed to permit more motor vehicles to travel faster. Clearly, a new design philosophy is needed to make roads safer, particularly for other roadway users like pedestrians and cyclists.