THESE STREETS AREN'T MADE FOR WALKING

The City of Chicago recently released the 2011 Pedestrian Crash Analysis report covering crash dates from 2005-2009. . This analysis builds off of the previous effort with data from the five-year period of 2005 through 2009. The report is 106 pages long.  It’s full of beautiful charts, graphs and statistics. I would guess that besides the people who prepared the report, maybe ten others read it. 

The report was prepared by the Chicago Department of Transportation, T.Y. Lin International (TYLI) and The Center for Education and Research in Safety.  TYLI has a staff of more than 1,000 structural engineers with offices in the United States and Asia.  The Center for Education and Research in Safety was established to “develop, carry out research and implement sustainable and socially acceptable programs designed to reduce crashes and injuries, and improve safety related behaviors for motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.”

One can only imagine the monetary size of the consulting contracts these two companies have with Chicago, because the amount of research detailed in this report is staggering.  I can only imagine these contracts, because I entered both vendors’ names in the city database and received “no records” found as an answer to my query.

The report has 99 different types of technical analyses of statistics with data as minuscule as “Pedestrian Crashes (2005-2009) by Pedestrian Conspicuity in Dark Conditions”, and broken down to the very category from time of day, to highway time, to gender, age group, weekend, weekday, type of car, even the type of driver! 

The report contains nineteen different maps of wards, streets and even the distance of a particular crash from where a business holds a liquor license!   Kernel Density of Nighttime Crashes (9:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m.) Near Businesses with Liquor Licenses in Central Business District,  “Notable are two corridors along Ontario Street between Clark Street and Rush Street and along Columbus Drive/Fairbanks Court between Ontario Street and Illinois Street. In addition, there are several hot spots at intersections scattered throughout this area.”

Nationally, Chicago does well when it comes to the number of deaths of pedestrians by vehicles.  It is 40% lower than what Phoenix experiences.

Pedestrian Fatalities per 100,000 Population (2005-2009) of Top Ten Cities by Population

Phoenix  3.04

Dallas  2.69

Los Angeles 2.35

Philadelphia 2.21

Houston 2.17

San Antonio 2.07

New York 1.82

Chicago 1.77

San Diego  1.65

San Jose 1.64

There is no minute statistic that this report does not cover, except perhaps the color of the hair and eyes of a particular pedestrian who was in an accident, and perhaps the driver.

It might be nice to have all these charts and graphs record what happened in the past, but they are useless without a conclusion. With all of that said about the report, there is one section that is missing.  There is no conclusion on what the city can do to help prevent pedestrian/vehicle accidents in the future!

I could have saved the city millions of dollars in time and research if they had just come to me and asked what to do to prevent accidents between vehicles and pedestrians.  For $5, I would have sung the song to them that I was taught in Kindergarten.

“Don’t cross in the middle, in the middle of the block.

Teach your eyes to look up.

Teach your ears to hear.

Walk up to the corner where the coast is clear.

And wait, and wait, and wait until the light turns green!”

Okay.  Maybe I would have charged them $10.