Fatal crashes into pedestrians are on the rise in Massachusetts, a StrollBoston report launched Thursday detailed, reaching 101 pedestrian deaths in 2022.
“We haven’t seen a number over 100 in well over 20 years — that’s as far back as the reports on MassDOT’s website go back,” mentioned Brendan Kearney, Deputy Director of StrollBoston. “That was stunning.”
The report data a 35% leap in crashes leading to pedestrian fatalities in 2022 in comparison with 2021 and reveals vital tendencies in who’s being killed and the place.
Of the entire fatalities, 71% occurred in “environmental justice neighborhoods” — neighborhoods assembly state standards associated to decrease family earnings, increased minority populations and better populations for whom English is a second language — and 65% of victims have been over age 50.
The neighborhoods face a heightened threat for various causes, Kearney mentioned, from proximity to high-speed, busy roads to a bigger cycle of financial disinvestment of their infrastructure.
“Residents in environmental justice neighborhoods deserve the ability to walk and move through their community without the threat of being hit and killed by someone operating a vehicle,” mentioned Tahara Samuel, Community Planning Manager of Madison Park Development Corporation. … “The City of Boston can start with the upcoming Roxbury Corridors project, a chance to hear from community members on how to make investments to fix Warren Street, Malcolm X Boulevard and Melnea Cass Boulevard.”
Boston had probably the most deadly crashes of any municipality with 12, adopted by Worcester with 7. Chicopee adopted third with 5 centered on two primary streets — a “stunning” outlier for a city of solely 55,000, Kearney famous.
The disproportionate influence on older residents is a continuation from earlier years’ tendencies and targets the oldest residents. Though residents over 65 make up solely 17% of the inhabitants, the report particulars, they represented 38% of all pedestrian fatalities.
The report recommends a larger concentrate on “age-friendly communities,” which means designing neighborhoods round a welcoming environment and security for older residents in addition to youthful ones.
The stories features a record of suggestions, together with an motion plan on MassDOT’s current Strategic Highway Safety Plan and on an area degree, consideration and advocacy round unsafe areas.
“If there’s good sightlines, good signs, raised crosswalks and just if it’s very obvious that people are going to be crossing an area and you slow down vehicles, the reaction time can be much better for drivers,” Kearney mentioned. … “Definitely the overriding factor is we just need to make it safer for people to cross the street and a lot of that has to do with slowing speeding vehicles.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”