Advocate for safer streets at City Council--Monday October 6

[Peter Houk]

Dear fellow walkers and bikers--

I have posted a summary of 2024 crash data on www.crashesinannarbor.org.  I've also included year-to-date information for 2025.  So far this year, Crashes In Ann Arbor has collected AAPD police reports for 2 fatalities and 11 serious injuries sustained by pedestrians.  There are still three months left in 2025, and already more pedestrians have been seriously injured or killed by traffic crashes than in any full year since 2014. 

Please join us at the city council meeting on Monday, October 6th, 7PM.  Representatives from the Safe Streets Alliance, comprised of WBW, Neighborhood Institute, Bike Alliance of Washtenaw and Crashes In Ann Arbor will be presenting this data to city council and calling on them to take immediate action to improve pedestrian safety in the last three months of 2025:

1. Conduct targeted enforcement of Ann Arbor’s crosswalk ordinance;

2. Enforce driver compliance at signalized intersections to protect crossing pedestrians and all other users;

3. Measure driver compliance at crosswalks;

4. Deactivate flashing yellow arrows at intersections where controls cannot detect the presence of a pedestrian. 

Additionally, we will urge city leaders to follow through on their commitment to Vision Zero with action and progress on these ongoing efforts:

1. Ensure that the Ann Arbor Roadway Rightsizing project includes plans to slow traffic to sub-lethal speeds wherever traffic mixes with vulnerable roadway users like pedestrians and cyclists;

2. Use the $500,000 budgeted for quick build projects to make meaningful improvements to dangerous, high speed streets;

3. Complete the transfer of all state trunk lines from MDOT to local control so we can remake our most dangerous streets to reflect Ann Arbor values.

Eleven pedestrians have been seriously injured in traffic crashes on the streets of Ann Arbor this year and two have been killed.  Four of those crashes happened on N. Main and E. Huron, MDOT trunk lines that run through downtown Ann Arbor.  One of the crashes on Huron killed a wheelchair user as he crossed in a crosswalk.  

Consider signing up to speak at the city council meeting so city leaders hear from our diverse community of walkers and bikers that this level of traffic violence is not OK in Ann Arbor.  Or just show up--your presence sends a message.

Thank you

Peter Houk