Pedestrian deaths in Michigan

[Bruce Geffen]

Pedestrian deaths fall nationwide — but not in Michigan Highway safety advocates have long been worried about the rise in pedestrian deaths in auto crashes, with a 61% increase from 2012 to 2022. But the Governors Highway Safety Association this week offered a glimmer of good news/bad news: The projected total for 2023 is down 5.4% from 2022, from just over 7,700 nationwide down to 7,318. The bad news? In Michigan, the number of projected pedestrian deaths,181, is up nearly 5% from 2022 (173). In fact, the 181 pedestrian deaths is right at the average of the past four years — and a sizable jump from the 149 in 2019.

[Kirk Westphal]

Thank you for passing along, Bruce. This is so tragic and unacceptable because it’s so unnecessary. 

Our city representatives are running out of excuses for action. 

1. As for dangerous non-city roads, we now have an expensive consultant report in hand telling us how we can enter negotiations with MDOT to take over responsibility for state roads (Washtenaw, Huron, Jackson, N Main). We need to get moving on this process.

2. We already have a city commitment to evaluate the reconfiguration of the city-owned dangerous multilane roads (eg Packard, Stadium, Plymouth, Huron Parkway, Broadway, Beakes, Ann Arbor Saline, Eisenhower, etc.). What are we waiting for? What is the strategy and timetable? The vibe I get is that these roads are not being viewed as an urgent safety crisis, and council is waiting for staff to line up holistic, expensive consultant reports on each segment. My view is that staff needs to be directed to do cheap safety improvements NOW (eg restripe and reallocate car lanes to bike lanes, in-road temporary traffic calming like flexposts, paint & post roundabouts, etc.) and then figure out more major infrastructure needs later (raised bus stops, new curbs, etc.)

Happy to discuss here, or meet about this with anyone separately (or over beer tonight at Blue Tractor at 5pm for the monthly urbanism happy hour). Some bike/ped focused folks will be there. 

Kirk

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[Peter Houk]

For 2023, I anticipate a substantial increase in fatal/severe pedestrian injuries in Ann Arbor when the official data is released.  According to my tally based on media coverage and police reports, I count 14 serious crashes in 2023, including 2 fatalities.  Compare that to 2022, when we had 9 serious crashes with 0 fatalities.  

 

There is more coverage of the 2023 crashes, including the AAPD incident reports, at my blog: www.crashesinannarbor.org.

We are obviously not on track to achieve our Vision Zero goal by 2025.  We need to demand real change from our city leaders in order to reverse this deadly trend.  Let's start with the MDOT and lane reduction actions that Kirk described.  

Peter Houk

    

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[Peter Houk]

Michigan Traffic Crash Facts released their data for calendar year 2023 today, and it confirms that last year was the worst year for Ann Arbor pedestrians since 2014.  According to their data, Ann Arbor had 11 serious pedestrian crashes and 1 fatality in 2023.  The recording of scooter crashes is not consistent though--one serious scooter crash is included in their pedestrian data and one fatal scooter crash is not.  There's more information on that discrepancy and links to the MTCF queries in this post. on Crashes in Ann Arbor.    

Thanks

Pete