Beth Kassab: Walking is too dangerous in Orlando.

First, the bad news. The region that stretches through Orlando from Sanford to Kissimmee is still just about the most dangerous place in America for people to walk.

Technically, the region is the third worst in the nation for pedestrians, but that’s only because the group that calculates the ranking, Smart Growth America, expanded the list from the 51 largest metro areas to the 104 biggest cities this year.

So if not for Cape Coral-Fort Myers (No. 1) and Palm BayMelbourne-Titusville (No. 2) being added to the tally, Orlando would have, once again, been in first place as it was during the three prior editions of the report that measures the rate of pedestrian deaths.

Orlando is so synonymous with the Dangerous by Design ranking — a staggering 575 people have died while trying to cross streets in our region between 2005 and 2014 — that a photo of two women attempting to bolt across Curry Ford Road was selected as the report’s cover shot. Now for the good news. Central Florida is getting a little better.

The region’s “Pedestrian Danger Index,” a figure calculated in the report based on the number of people who walk to work and the number of pedestrian deaths, has improved by nearly 10 points since 2014.

That’s in large part because elected officials have gotten fed up with repeatedly being named the worst in the country when it comes dangerous roads.

Even if they had to be shamed into it, the fact that city and county councils across Central Florida are taking pedestrian deaths more seriously is a big gain.

“The momentum is there,” said Amanda Day, executive director of Bike/ Walk Central Florida. “But we really have our work cut out for us.”

One place, she said, that is making strides is the city of Clermont in south Lake County.

In 2015, the mayor and city council issued a proclamation that people, not cars, would be the priority when planning roads.

That was especially significant for a city known as a hub for triathlon training and events.

Now every new road in Clermont is required to have a bike lane, crosswalks are regularly monitored for drivers who fail to yield to walkers and the speed limit on at least one road, East Avenue, is likely to be reduced.

Shannon Schmidt, the city’s economic development director, says the changes have become fundamental to how the town thinks about planning.

The hope, she said, is that more people in Clermont, a city of more than 34,000, consider walking and cycling as a way to get around, not just as sport and

recreation.

“Between now and the end of March, we’ll have 42 triathlon teams here,” Schmidt said. “Our main opportunity is we want to translate that more deeply into a mode of transportation.”

Other areas have made improvements, too.

The Orange County Commission recently approved changes for University Boulevard and Alafaya Trail near the University of Central Florida, a hotspot over the years for pedestrian and cyclist accidents and deaths.

And last year the cities of Winter Park, Maitland, Longwood, Casselberry, Kissimmee and Orlando as well as Orange and Osecola counties participated in a series of workshops with Smart Growth America meant to make streets safer.

A report with recommendations for each city and county is due out next month.

With any luck, those guidelines will help serve as a map toward less dangerous roads for our region in the future.

Because we still have far too many local headlines like these:

“Man killed crossing John Young Parkway”

“Police ticket driver in volunteer’s death; Library worker was hit in downtown crosswalk in April”

“Pedestrian and dog killed by motorist”

“Police: Car hits woman pushing man in wheelchair near Florida Hospital.”

And those were just since the first of the year.

With any luck, new guidelines will help serve as a map toward less dangerous roads for our region in the future.