Pedestrian safety and how planning can enhance it

Philip Stoker & Andrea Garfinkel-Castro & Meleckidzedeck Khayesi & Wilson Odero & Martin N. Mwangi & Margie Peden & Reid Ewing, "Pedestrian Safety and the Built Environment: A Review of the Risk Factors," Journal of Planning Literature 30 (2015): 4

The take-away: This article reviews literature addressing how to improve pedestrian safety through: avoiding particular development patterns (i.e. sprawl),  enhancing pedestrian visibility with lighting, reducing vehicle speed, and implementing various kinds of infrastructure to limit pedestrian-traffic interactions.

Abstract: Urban and regional planning has a contribution to make toward improving pedestrian safety, particularly in view of the fact that about 273,000 pedestrians were killed in road traffic crashes in 2010. The road is a built environments that should enhance safety and security for pedestrians, but this ideal is not always the case. This article presents an overview of the evidence on the risks that pedestrians face in the built environment. This article shows that design of the roadway and development of different land uses can either increase or reduce pedestrian road traffic injury. Planners need to design or modify the built environment to minimize risk for pedestrians.

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