X-Message-Number: 10194 Date: Fri Aug 07 01:34:33 1998 PST Subject: Fwd: Walking Unsafe! From: (Edgar W Swank) 09:36 AM ET 08/06/98 U.S. study says walking most dangerous way to travel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Walking is more dangerous per mile traveled than any other form of transportation, said a group Thursday that advocates making public areas more friendly for pedestrians. The Surface Transportation Policy Project said the approximately 5,000 pedestrians killed in 1996 out of 42,000 traffic deaths were often not even seen as legitimate road users. ``Instead of blaming pedestrians for being hit by cars, planners and engineers must design communities and roads that are safe for walking,'' the group said in its ``Mean Streets'' report. It also listed the ten most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians, led by Orlando, Florida, followed by the Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater area in Florida and Miami-Fort Lauderdale, again in Florida. The Providence-Pawtucket-Fall River area spanning Rhode Island and Massachusetts was fourth placed, followed by Phoenix in Arizona, Houston-Galveston-Brazoria in Texas, and Atlanta. The Los Angeles-Anaheim-Riverside area was eighth ranked for danger to pedestrians, with the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region in New York and the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill area in the Carolinas making up the ten. The advocacy group calculated the relative danger between metropolitan areas by looking at 1996 government data on the number of pedestrian incidents per 100,000 people and adjusting it by the percentage of people walking to work. The fatality rate per billion miles traveled is lowest for transit buses (0.1), followed by air carriers (0.2), Amtrak (0.5), cars (10.5) and then walking (147 to 316 depending on different estimates of miles walked). The group called for measures that include the use of ''traffic calming'' techniques to slow down neighborhood traffic and flexible design of business and residential areas that are unhindered by car-oriented requirements of most zoning codes. The Surface Transportation Polciy Project said the issue was not trivial. It noted that the 837 child pedestrians killed by cars in 1996 was far greater than the 23 young lives taken by air bags that sparked numerous Congressional hearings and eventual action by government and manufacturers. Posted by Edgar W. Swank <> President - American Cryonics Society http://www.jps.net/cryonics/ _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10194