City ranks high in bicycle, pedestrian safety, study says

Bike Pittsburgh on Friday released a report comparing pedestrian and bicycling safety in Pittsburgh with cities similar in size and demographics.

Its conclusion: Biking and walking in Pittsburgh were relatively safe when compared with similar cities, but more can be done to help protect pedestrians and bicyclists.

The report, released in honor of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, compiled statistics from a variety of sources.

Bike Pittsburgh said the report was intended for urban planners and public officials and aimed “to better understand how our streets are performing and serving our safety needs.”

“We had no real data on what was going on out there in the streets,” said Eric Boerer, Bike PGH advocacy director. “[We] talked to a lot of people who couldn’t answer some basic questions, like how many people a year die on our streets? How many of those people are bicyclists? How many of those are pedestrians?”

To compare Pittsburgh with other cities, the report used statistics from counties that encompass cities of a similar size because of the availability and consistency of data. For Pittsburgh, the report used data from Allegheny County, although most of the county’s traffic collisions occur inside city limits, the report said.

Data from counties encompassing Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Honolulu, Louisville and Milwaukee were used in the report, which is available on Bike Pittsburgh’s website, bikepgh.org.

According to the report, Allegheny County from 2010 to 2014 was rated among the lowest in pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 people. The county saw its highest rate of fatalities in 2010, averaging 1.06 per 100,000 people. The counties that include Buffalo, Honolulu and Louisville all had higher fatality rates each year from 2010 to 2014, and Milwaukee had a higher fatality rate every year except in 2013.

Although the report itself said that it came to “few surprising revelations” — pedestrians and bicyclists are more likely than motorists to be killed or seriously injured in crashes — “it’s important that politicians, advocates and decision makers have a baseline of what is going on in order to make intelligent arguments and develop reasoned responses.”

“We feel that if we work toward putting resources toward making the pedestrian experience as safe as possible, that will have the largest impact on reducing injuries and harm in the city.” Mr. Boerer said.