Improving coordination with State DOTs
This year’s release of Dangerous by Design found that, once again, the majority of pedestrian fatalities occur on state-owned roads. This isn’t surprising. These roads can be some of the hardest to make safer for people outside of vehicles because they were built or designed to move high-speed traffic through the area, even if they also need to provide access to local jobs, stores, schools, and other local destinations people access daily. It is impossible for a road to serve both as a main street and a state highway. What’s more, local Complete Streets policies or other efforts to address community concerns only have jurisdiction over local roads and may have little to no effect on roads owned by the state.
A Collaborative Approach to Pedestrian Safety
Recognize the scope and severity of the crisis and the need for new approaches:
If state leaders are not willing to agree that there is a massive safety crisis on these state-owned roads and a need to challenge the (currently failing) approaches to addressing traffic safety, it is hard to see how we will have real progress in reducing fatalities. This may include re-thinking metrics of success and better-incorporating factors like the lived experience of community members.
Create new processes and policies to enable quick implementation and long-term systems change:
Steps can be taken by both state DOTs and local jurisdictions to improve collaboration and the chances of successful project implementation. Joint efforts, such as those around a quick-build demonstration, can be used to identify priorities for change and demonstrate a commitment by the state to improve community safety.
Foster creativity and innovation at every opportunity:
It is important to note that in many of the states SGA has worked with over the years, the willingness and resourcefulness of state-level staff varied greatly with those representing state DOTs at the district or regional level. A commitment to safety must be institutionalized so that every single staff member not only shares it but promotes it and feels comfortable finding innovative ways to improve the status quo.
Look for common ground:
Interactions and relationships between city and state staff have a history of challenges—a lack of trust, all virtual exchanges, no clear person to contact, and counterparts are often viewed as an obstacle to tackle rather than a person to collaborate with. This is in and of itself is a barrier to change. Opportunities should be provided for state staff to engage in person in the spaces they are designing for and the people they are designing with. A shared vision for projects should be based on the intent and goals and not individual design elements that might be outside of existing guidance.
DOT Coordination Case Studies
For more examples of how states and local jurisdictions are working together to address the devastating trend of pedestrian fatalities, read our case studies on Kalamazoo, MI, and Seattle, WA.
DOT Coordination Case Study: Seattle and Washington
The most dangerous road in Seattle, Washington, is State Route 99, Aurora Avenue N. 19 people were killed while walking on Aurora Ave N between 2008 and 2022, on just 7.6 miles of road. 14 of these deaths occurred between 2018 and 2022, which is 15% of all pedestrian fatalities in Seattle during that time.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided support for data analysis and synthesis used in the report under cooperative agreement OT18-1802 supporting the Active People, Healthy NationSM Initiative, a national initiative led by the CDC to help 27 million Americans become more physically active by 2027.
Learn more: https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/activepeoplehealthynation/index.html. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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