Orlando ‘still number one’ in danger for pedestrians
The Orlando area continues to lock down its rank as the most dangerous place in the nation for pedestrians.
“Still number one,” said Rayla Bellis, primary author of the 2021 Dangerous By Design report that analyzes the nation’s pedestrian deaths and compares statistics of metro areas and states. Orlando and a few other cities had slightly better numbers in the new report than in one two years ago.
“These places were so dangerous to begin with that even seeing these improvements, they are still rising to the top,” Bellis said.
The report by the pedestrian-safety advocacy groups Smart Growth America and National Complete Streets Coalition draws from a decade of statistics from 2010
through 2019, the last full year of available data.
During the period, motorists hit and killed 53,435 people or more than 14 per day on average, the report states. Also in that period, 49 of 50 states continued to grow more perilous for walking.
The 10 most dangerous states, with Florida topping the list, in order are Alabama, New Mexico, Mississippi, Delaware, Louisiana, Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas.
The Orlando metro area, spanning Sanford and Kissimmee, had 740 pedestrian deaths from 2010 to 2019.
The report’s experts contend that pedestrians and drivers are set up for tragedy by road departments that favor designs prioritizing the flow of traffic and showing less concern for the risks of walking along or across roads.
The early months of the pandemic underscored a longstanding awareness that speed is the top factor in pedestrians deaths. As communities locked down and volumes of traffic dropped, pedestrian deaths rose.
When streets “became emptier, they became more deadly because the designs of our roads encourage people to drive quickly, and without congestion, there’s nothing to stop it,” said Beth Osborne, transportation director for Smart Growth America director.
Dangerous by Design reports utilize a rating system that account for regional differences, including the extent of walking in a community. New York City, for example, has a high toll — 3,112 deaths from 2010 through 2019 — but also a high degree of walking among residents.
Orlando, by comparison, doesn’t have as many pedestrians deaths but has a much lower rate of walking among residents than the New York metro area, Bellis said.
Orlando-area hot spots include State Road 50 through Pine Hills, Orange Blossom Trail south of Interstate 4 and State Road 436 south of State Road 408. Those are classically dangerous stretches of road: wide, fast and with a dearth of crosswalks and other refuge for people walking.
Dangerous by Design reports in 2009, 2011 and 2014 ranked the Orlando area as the most dangerous in the nation.
In 2016, the report doubled the metro areas it evaluated, increasing the number from 50 to 100. In that year’s report, Orlando dropped to third place behind Cape Coral in first place and the Palm Bay, Melbourne and Titusville are in second place.
It was a short reprieve from being known as the nation’s most dangerous. For the 2019 report, utilizing a decade of data from 2008 through 2017, Orlando saw a steep rise in its “Pedestrian Danger Index” and jumped back into the top spot.
“We know that as a local government, our infrastructure can play a key role in reducing, if not eliminating these unnecessary pedestrian fatalities,” Orlando spokeswoman Samantha Holsten said.
“That’s why the city of Orlando has made significant investments,” Holsten said, “including adopting a complete streets policy, adding miles of new sidewalks through our Orlando Walks program and enhancing pedestrian signals and crosswalks with audible countdowns, flashing beacons and textured pavement to increase visibility.”
Still coming is a showcase project, a pedestrian and cycling friendly remake of Robinson Street from near I-4 to east of the city’s signature park at Lake Eola. Design work starts later this year and construction is to be done in 2025.
Among other measures, Orange County is upgrading school crosswalks, building a recreational path in Pine Hills and pushing to reduce speed limits on some roads.
“We are not proud of the designation but it is a reality and we realize we have a lot of work to do,” county spokeswoman Kelly Finkelstein said. “This issue is not just a numbers or data issue, it affects people every day and families are affected by this in multiple ways.”
The report states that no local government in Florida can succeed alone.
That’s because the Florida Department of Transportation “owns and operates many of the roads in those metro areas. Orlando and other Florida cities need the state to be a stronger partner,” the report states.
The Dangerous by Design reports show that 9 of the 20 most dangerous communities in the nation are in Florida.
In the 2011 report, the most dangerous metro areas were, in order, Orlando, Tampa and St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, Miami and Fort Lauderdale and San Bernardino, Calif.
The 2021 report lists the top five as Orlando, Bakersfield, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., the metro area of Palm Bay, Melbourne and Titusville, and the metro area of Deltona, Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach.
Ranking least dangerous in the 2021 report are Provo, Utah, followed by Madison, Wisc., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Boston, and Springfield, Mass.