Walking in L.A: Los Angeles Comes in Second Among American Big Cities in Total Pedestrians Killed in '00s
You can sleep well knowing that L.A. came in at No. 27 -- if you weigh for population and walking to work -- in a national ranking of big-city pedestrian deaths by the organization Transportation for America. Or you can wake up in a cold sweat knowing that we had the second-highest number of total fatalities in the '00s
prayitno Walking in L.A.
This glass is half full: People really don't walk in L.A? But they sure die trying.
Grandma will probably get a few more strolls in on her pedometer. Unless, of course, she lives in downtown, Pico-Union or Koreatown, which look downright perilous when you see a map of walkers fatally mowed down by drivers:
T4A
Ay, dios mio.
From 2000 to 2009 there were 2,533 pedestrian deaths in L.A. metro, nearly five times the number of No. 1 Orlando but not quite as many as in metro New York (3,485).
So, in total numbers, we're No. 2 (as usual). But, weighing for population, our "average annual pedestrian fatality rate" score was 2. That, paired with a "percent of people walking to work" (you laugh) of 2.6 percent gave L.A. a low "pedestrian danger index."
Unless you live downtown.
Transportation for American used the occasion to decry the state of pedestrian infrastructure in America. In other words, they're pissed that roads are designed without walkers in mind: T4A:
Nationwide, pedestrians account for nearly 12 percent of total traffic deaths. But state departments of transportation have largely ignored pedestrian safety from a budgetary perspective, allocating only about 1.5 percent of available federal funds to projects that retrofit dangerous roads or create safe alternatives.
So tread lightly, Angelenos.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]
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