Car crashes take 40,000 American lives each year. They are such a part of the fabric of our world that we often don't question why they occur, or whether they are inevitable. We discuss them as random tragedies, or if anything we get angry at one or more of the parties involved in the crash for their recklessness or inattention. Rarely do most of us consider the role of the built environment in causing—or preventing—these tragic events.

And yet, when you actually start to gather data, you see just how much the environment matters. Because a shocking percentage of the crashes that kill or injure pedestrians occur on just one type of urban thoroughfare: the stroad.

Smith, as someone who primarily gets around his city by walking and biking, saw this. He wanted his city's officials to see it too. So, when it came time to write a thesis for his master's degree program at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Smith decided to make his an exploration of pedestrian crashes in Rockford: where do they happen, what are the features of the places where they happen, and most importantly, what might be done about it?

Towards a More Walkable Rockford

We published a post of Smith's about his preliminary work in August 2018. Digging into and mapping the city's own crash data from 2007–2016 confirmed his prediction that these crashes and deaths were overwhelmingly concentrated—90% over a nine-year period—on arterial roadways, almost all of which were streets that one could describe as a stroad.

For the second stage of his work, Smith conducted field observations of collision-prone locations identifiied in the data. To observe how the built environment is related to pedestrian and motorist behavior, Smith placed cameras at three key intersections on State Street, the city's main east-west stroad, and recorded video of pedestrian-vehicle interactions over a period of several weeks. The video clips discussed in the report are viewable on YouTube here.

From these videos, Smith was able to identify not just that these were dangerous environments, but aspects of why. His report contains observations such as these:

Site 1 includes many examples of pedestrians and motorists starting and stopping as they communicate who is going to proceed first. One example... shows pedestrians stopping for vehicles turning left from State onto Jefferson; the pedestrian stops in the crosswalk and motions with his or her hand for the motorist to proceed. Among those activities involving a wheelchair, all but one involved a pedestrian avoiding the designated crosswalk ramps at the intersection and using a combination of the vehicle curb cuts and roadway instead. This activity appears to be due to the condition of the crosswalk ramps which fail to meet the latest ADA requirements.

A recurring takeaway from Smith's video observations is the following: Given a place they need to get, and no straightforward, safe way of getting there, people will do as people do, and they will improvise. When you combine this with stroad environments, many of which have inadequate or no sidewalks or other pedestrian accommodations, dangerous close calls result—and sometimes tragedy.