Safety And Liability

Safety isn't a political issue. I have family in the reddest part of the reddest state.. They live in a county the size of Connecticut without any traffic stop lights. They do have signs and laws that traffic has to yield to pedestrians, and this is on US Hwy 191. Still, when I was there this summer they were installing new pedestrian crossing lights.

See PinedaleOnline: Pedestrian ‘Hybrid’ beacons to be installed in Pinedale

I'm all for Traverse City requiring traffic to yield to pedestrians.

Wonder if this will mean that the Spirit Of Traverse City will have to yield to pedestrians too?

Today The Ticker reported on the little train's unsettled fate: Will TC Blow the Whistle on the Train (Again)?

My kids love riding the train. But if they were on it and it derailed again I'd be tempted to sue the City for negligence. Because it has happened before. See the Record-Eagle: No injuries after mini train derails


This summer a teenager was tragically electrocuted and drowned in the marina. The City is going to get sued for negligence. See IPR: Lawsuit Expected Next Week in TC Marina Drowning

Because back in June there was this posting at ThirdCoastSurfShop.com: Take Caution which warned other paddlers that there were electrical problems in the Traverse City marina.

I see parallels between these events. Known dangerous circumstances on City property. Luckily no one has been injured on The Spirit yet but if the derailment cause was never determined then it could happen again. It isn't hard to envision the next derailment injuring a small child.

Though perhaps the nostalgia is worth it? I don't know the answer.

Just as I don't have the answers to the technical questions that need answered today and years from now too:

-Who fixes the train when it breaks down?
-Are spare parts available?
-Will technicians be available to maintain it?
-Will fuel be too expensive some day?
-Who will push the train up the final stretch when it gets bogged down?

And I have to think the City's insurance to cover the train will probably go way up after the marina lawsuit. The City may be forced to give it up due to liability worries. That's one way to settle a debate.

Bending The Culture Curve

There's been a lot of news since the last post about complete streets and safety at this site.

Traverse City leaders are making traffic safety a priority and released a Bicycle Safety Rules PDF.

Also See IPR: Bike-Car Crashes Concern City Leaders In T.C.

There was a study released on the most dangerous cities for pedestrians in the U.S.
See NYT: On Wide Florida Roads, Running for Dear Life

And the University of Michigan did a study that concluded Michigan traffic accidents have a higher external cost to society than crime.
See DetNews: Traffic crashes cost Michigan $9.1B, more than crime

These reports gave me the impetus to mention something that I neglected in The Mandate Of Complete Streets.

That is Culture. What makes walking part of a culture and why are some areas safer? Is there a culture of safety?

When I think of a walking culture I think of the U.K. Specifically, The Ramblers. Walking is so important to the fabric of English society that the Ramblers ensure that at least once per year every foot path in the U.K. is traveled in order to maintain the public's right-of-way.

Can we have that? How do we make walking safely part of our culture when for the last 50 years the United States has been expanding roadways and making roads safer for vehicles but dangerous by design (Transportation for America PDF report) for everything else? How does the culture buy into the idea that more than vehicles move?

While Complete Streets are a new thing in the U.S., the similar concept of Living Streets has been in England since 1929.

So we could wait 80 years and let the ideas of Complete Streets filter through the culture, or we could use data to drive our decisions.

At my job I analyze data sourced from across Michigan and establish baselines of how many Internet problems per number of devices is normal and then look for areas with abnormal trouble rates and search for ways to lower that baseline rate.

When I read the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study: Societal costs of traffic crashes and crime in Michigan: 2011 update, I realized similar data was available in the study's data source: 2009 Transportation Data Center
Data Set Codebook

We had accidents per county and the census can give us population. Perhaps I could apply them?

I found some Michigan web sites with traffic crash data:
-Michigan Traffic Crash Facts
-Michigan State Police Traffic Crash Statistics
-Michigan State Police Traffic Crash Reporting Information

They had the reports I was looking for as PDF's:

-2010 Michigan Traffic Crash Facts for County/Communities
-MICHIGAN STATE POLICE CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION CENTER CRASH STATISTICS NUMBER OF CRASHES REPORT STATEWIDE TOTALS FOR 01/01/2010 THROUGH 12/31/2010 (all caps is the original format)

Methods

I used the 2010 Census to get population numbers.

I exported the crash data from the PDF's to a spreadsheet.

I then calculated median accident rates per number of people in the community and also plotted these on a graph to look for trends.

I did not expect to see any trends or correlations as there seemed to be so many different variables that can have an effect on traffic accidents. But that is not what I found.

Results

The calculated median accident rate for Michigan in 2010 is 32.2 accidents per 1000 people. And it all fit on a trend line (which surprised me):



Next I uploaded the tables to OpenHeatMap to see if there was any pattern to which counties were above this 32.2 accident rate and which were safer. Green is a lower accident rate and red is a higher accident rate by population.

Link to larger version: Michigan County Accident Rate (You can hover over each county to see its Accident Rate score)


It appears to me that rural counties have a higher rate of accidents when weighted for population.

I then applied the same methods to Bicycle Accidents and Pedestrian Accidents.

The calculated median bicycle accident rate for Michigan in 2010 is 0.13 accidents per 1000 people.



Full size Map: 2010 Michigan Bicycle Accident Rate



The calculated median pedestrian accident rate for Michigan in 2010 is 0.15 accidents per 1000 people.



Full size Map: 2010 Michigan Pedestrian Accident Rate


The Bicycle and Pedestrian Accident rates do not show as strong a correlation as total accidents but there is still a pattern.

When looking at the county maps it appears to me that the counties with a strong biking culture have the highest rate of bicycle accidents. These would be counties hosting large Universities where many students use bikes out of necessity and Grand Traverse County where people choose to ride.

It is harder to make sense of the Pedestrian Accidents map. It could be suburban walkers who don't have access to sidewalks are in greater danger.

To explore this possibility I made a map of the Walk Scores Of Michigan's 65 Most Populous Cities with data from WalkScore:



What you see is that city cores have higher walk scores and the suburbs get progressively worse (clearly evident in Wayne County). But is this related to safety?

At MichiganTrafficCrashFacts.org there is a Data Query Tool that lets you build specific maps and tables for defined areas. I used it to look at Traverse City and Grand Traverse County.

2010 Crashes in Grand Traverse County involving pedestrians:

You can see that though many pedestrian accidents were reported within Traverse City proper these usually did not result in injury. But the pedestrian accidents in Grawn, Kingsley, and Williamsburg while fewer in number resulted in serious injury and fatalities.

2010 Crashes in Grand Traverse County involving bicycles:

What I see on this map is more bike accidents downtown, but worse injuries outside of downtown.

What do we do?

Based on these maps and tables I believe that implementing design concepts such as Complete Streets can make roads safer for people, whether they are walking, riding a bike, or driving a car. And I believe that if we make the roads safer for all forms of transportation then more people start using those other forms of transportation. The economy, freed from the burden of unnecessary accidents, grows.

By bending the accident trend lines we can change the arc of our culture.

There are still many questions though and I hope that the research here can serve as a baseline for the future. Two big questions I look forward to having answered are:

-do communities that implement Complete Street designs see their Accident Rate decline?
-do communities with better WalkScores have lower accident rates?

For anyone who wants to do their own research I have uploaded my spreadsheet to Google Docs from there is it easily exportable.

Your Speed

Is based on a feedback loop.

And you can be made to decrease your speed by 10% without even realizing it.

This is why a 'Your Speed' radar display is going up on W Front St.

Wonder how this works?

See Wired: Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops

If you like this kind of thing then pick up a copy of the book Nudge.

Complete Streets Are For Everyone

NPR had a story this week on how Complete Streets make streets safer for pedestrians who are crossing them. Especially for those people who cannot sprint across an intersection.

As America Ages, A Push To Make Streets Safer

Including Seniors and the less mobile.

This is a concept that doesn't get much coverage - social costs.

When pedestrians are unnecessarily injured there is a cost to society that is accrued - lost wages, lost productivity - plus the opportunity cost of having medical personnel respond to an accident that could have been prevented by better design.

Rather some people shout the simpler slogan of "unfunded mandate". Yes, unfunded mandates are a burden but in this case it ignores the fact that it is a concept to guide a design process for when roads are built or repaired so the money is already there. I like to save the unfunded mandate accusation for when it really is a problem.

Do people in earthquake zones call building codes an unfunded mandate? No. Because like the Complete Streets design concept, taking time to do things right the first time saves people from having to pay a lot at some later time.

Complete Streets Are Safe For Everyone

New study shows making roads safe for pedestrians make them safer for cars too.

Via Discovering Urbanism: New study sheds light on roadway safety for all

Quote from the study:

"This study finds that the factors associated with a vehicle crashing into a pedestrian and cyclist are largely the same as those resulting in a crash with another vehicle. Designs that balance the inherent tension between vehicle speeds and traffic conflicts can be used to enhance the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike."

Another Reason Women Don't Bike - Men

The conventional wisdom is that more women don't ride their bikes because they don't feel safe.

But another reason appears to be that men can let their idiotic side come out when they see a woman on a bicycle. See The Guardian: Record and ridicule: Female cyclists expose sexist idiots online

Biking Safety

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live." -Mark Twain

When people (women predominantly) are asked why they don't bike more they respond that it is because it is not safe. See Infrastructurist: Why More Women Don’t Ride Bikes (And What We Can Do About It)

In NYC one person decided to try something novel on their bicycle in the interest of safety - obeying traffic laws: Braking Away

But in the last few years, bicycling has become an accepted and much safer way to get around the city. Bike lanes abound, putting cars, trucks and vans at least a couple of feet farther from me. On the many paths along the rivers I can find breezy quiet and truly fresh air.

Perhaps looking for a new challenge, I’ve been attempting something unexpected in New York City bike-riding behavior: I stop for red lights.

And Vancouver has found that by protecting bicyclists it leads to more people on bikes. See: Protected Bike Lanes Increase Cycling by 30% on Vancouver's Burrard Bridge (Video)

What this means to Traverse City is that the bicycle advocates are right. For a safe and healthy community we need bike lanes wherever we can get them.