Traffic crashes kill more than 1.2 million people every year. While most traffic safety initiatives tend to focus on behavioral approaches -- such as helmet- and seatbelt-wearing campaigns -- there’s an undervalued approach to making the world’s roads safer: good urban design.
CITIES SAFER BY DESIGN is a global reference guide to help cities save lives from traffic fatalities through improved street design and smart urban development.
Cities Safer by Design: Real-world guide on designing safer streets and communities
1. BEN WELLE, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, HEALTH & ROAD SAFETY, EMBARQ INITIATIVE, WRI ROSS CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES
CITIES SAFER BY DESIGN
Real-world guide on designing safer streets and communities
2. GLOBAL TRENDS
The urban population
will increase from
50% in 2007 to
70% in 2030
(UNICEF 2012).
The number of cars
will more than double
by 2050, from
1 BILLION today
to 2.5 BILLION
in 2050.
NEARLY
HALF
of the world’s traffic
fatalities already
occur in cities.
3. WHO IS TRAFFIC SAFETY ABOUT?
• Road crashes are the leading cause of death among
young people ages 15-29, and the second leading
cause of death worldwide among people ages 5-14
(WHO 2003).
• Older pedestrians and cyclists can account for up to 45
percent of pedestrian fatalities and up to 70 percent of
cyclist fatalities (Oxley et al. 2004).
• People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are
more likely to be involved in traffic crashes, and often
live in areas with low-quality infrastructure (WHO 2003).
8. KEY URBAN DESIGN ELEMENTS
• Block size
• Street connectivity
• Street widths
• Access to destinations
• Population density
9. COMPACT & CONNECTED URBAN DESIGN
Smaller block sizes and distance between signalized intersections can reduce
speeds and improve safety. Complement with fewer 4-armed junctions.
10. COMPACT & CONNECTED URBAN DESIGN
Illustration showing the different aspects of street width.
Evidence from Mexico City shows that as the maximum pedestrian crossing distance
at an intersection increases by 1 meter, pedestrian fatality risk increases 6%.
11. COMPACT & CONNECTED URBAN DESIGN
Destinations and points of interest.
Vehicle travel in cities is most strongly related to accessibility to destinations,
meaning that efforts to increase access to jobs, retail and public space can decrease
vehicle travel and improve overall safety
13. SPEED HUMPS
Speed humps are simple but effective ways to lower speeds. Newly installed humps have
shown to reduce mean vehicle speeds from 36.4 to a designed speed of 24.4 km/hr.
Mexico City
14. RAISED CROSSINGS
10 percent reduction in speeds, slows vehicles turning and passing through
intersections, and prioritizes pedestrian passing on even pavement.
Bogota, Colombia
15. CURB EXTENSIONS
Joinville, Brazil
Evidence from Latin American cities shows that the chance of a vehicle collision and
pedestrian crash increases by 6 percent for every additional 1 meter of pedestrian
crossing distance. Curb extensions are simple ways to reduce crossing distance.
16. ARTERIAL CORRIDORS AND JUNCTIONS
• Major arterial considerations
• Crossings
• Signalization
• Medians
• Median refuge islands
• Lane balance
17. CREATING COMPLETE STREETS
A major arterial street in Mexico City was recently transformed into a “Calle
Completa,” with a protected cycle lane, dedicated BRT, new sidewalks and access to
a central green median.
18. MEDIAN REFUGE ISLANDS
Paris, France
Small changes can help, too. Median refuge islands and medians can make crossing
easier and lower speeds of passing traffic by providing protection in the middle of the road
and narrowing the view of the road of drivers
19. PEDESTRIAN SPACES AND ACCESS
TO PUBLIC SPACE
• Safer sidewalks
• Shared streets
• Pedestrian streets and zones
• Safe access to places to learn and play
• Open streets, or ciclovias
• Street plazas
22. PEDESTRIANIZING STREETS
Izmir, Turkey
Pedestrianization can cut traffic crashes in half in and around these zones, and
create great public spaces for people in high-volume areas. Measures should be
taken at buffer areas to ensure safe entry.
23. STREET PLAZAS & PARKLETS
New York has shown a decrease of 16 percent in speeding and a 26 percent
reduction in injury crashes along streets that contain pedestrian plazas.
Sao Paulo, BrazilMexico City
24. BICYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE
• Bicycle networks
• Bike lanes and cycle tracks
• Off-street trails
• Shared bicycle street
• Bicycle safety at intersections
• Bike safety at bus stops
• Bicycle signals
25. NETWORK FOR SAFETY IN NUMBERS
Bogota, Colombia found that adding more than 100 km (62 miles) of bikeways
helped reduce bicyclist deaths by 47.2 percent between 2003 and 2013 , and
increased bicycle use from just over 3 percent of all daily trips to over 6 percent.
26. PROTECT CYCLISTS ON BUSIER STREETS
Protected bicycle lanes on busy roads and help ensure cyclists feel safe and are not
at great risk from distracted drivers.
27. PROTECTED CYCLE LANES
ShanghaiMexico City
Mexico City now has over 120 km of cycle lanes, including protected lanes, and
places like Shanghai also are installing protected bicycle lanes.
28. GETTING INTERSECTIONS RIGHT
Speed-reducing countermeasures (e.g. raised bicycle crossings) and design to
increase cyclist-driver visibility can improve visual search patterns in favor of the
cyclists coming from the right.
Amsterdam
29. GREEN NETWORKS
Off-street bike paths have been found to be one of the safest bicycle routes, but
providing bike and pedestrian tracks within them has been shown to provide better
safety compared to mixed-user paths
Bogota, Colombia
30. SHARED BICYCLE STREETS – BIKE BLVDS
Collision rates on well-designed bicycle boulevards have been shown to be two to
eight times lower than those on parallel, adjacent arterial routes.
Minneapolis, MN
31. SAFE ACCESS TO TRANSIT STATIONS AND STOPS
• Intersections
• Midblock pedestrian crossings
• BRT /Busway Stations
• Terminals and transfer stations
• Midblock bus stops
32. TRANSIT IS SAFE - MAKE ACCESS TO IT SAFE, TOO
Istanbul, Turkey
Mass transit has a lot of people moving to and from it, so making this a safe
connection is key. Often a corridor might be built or run without much consideration
of this, so things like providing traffic calming, or raised pedestrian crossings to
stations as seen here in Istanbul can help improve safety and access.
33. IMPROVING DATA AND ANALYSIS
• Data analysis and assessment tools for deploying
these design principles
Heat Map of Traffic Crashes in Eskisehir, Turkey
34. BEN WELLE, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, HEALTH & ROAD SAFETY, EMBARQ INITIATIVE, WRI ROSS CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES
EMAIL: bwelle@wri.org
BLOG: TheCityFix.com
WEB: WRIcities.org
DOWNLOADTHE REPORTAT:
www.wri.org/cities-safer-design
#citiessaferbydesign
Hinweis der Redaktion
-Thank you all for coming
-We are happy to release this guide, which though we’re launching in DC we hope that it is something policymakers and designers can use to help save lives through safer systems, something we’re seeing more of all over through the Vision Zero and other initiatives that are not accepting death as inevitable on our city streets.
We’re now at a point where how we design cities across the world can mean a great deal in saving lives now and in the future. Many of you are familiar with these statistics.
-people living in cities will represent 70% of the world’s population by 2030
-he number of cars on the road is already above a billion and expected to be 2.5 billion by 2050
-nearly half of traffic fatalities have been shown to occur in cities, and there are currently 1.24 million annual road deaths, expected to rise to the 5th leading cause of death by 2030.
Our streets just aren’t designed to care for the young, the old, or the disabled, nor the healthy, wealthy and vibrant.
This is more than just a global health issue, it is one that is impacting the future of our children, our quality of life and equity.
-road crashes are the leading cause of death among people between ages 15 and 29; and the second leading cause of death among children between 5 and 14.
-pedestrians and cyclists can make up half of these deaths, with the elderly accounting for nearly half of pedestrian fatalities.
-the poor are more likely to be involved in traffic crashes, and be trapped in poverty because of it.
We took a look at how selected cities are doing for traffic safety, and many are either not reporting data very well, nor doing well in safety.
Among developed cities with better data, however, we can see what kind of impact planning only for cars will have. Atlanta, car dependent, poor conditions for pedestrians and cyclists and dispersed and disconnected, has nearly 10 fatalities per 100,000 residents while Tokyo, a compact, connected and walkable city has just above 1. This is a pretty stark contrast and we looked into just how cities, as they develop now, can follow the latter path.
We looked further and divided these themes into 6 design principles for Cities Safer by Design, and each chapter is focused on describing the elements and evidence for implementing these measures. We also see that there are not just examples of good things in Copenhagen or Stockholm, but in places from Bogota to Beijing and Mexico City to Istanbul. We try to connect each measure presented with a practice in a wide range of cities. The message is, good things are happening, they just need to be identified, measured, applied to local context and scaled up.
How cities design the layout of streets, land uses and people; and how they connect and work together can have a great impact on safety. Cities with smaller blocks, a connected street network with compact living close to destinations such as retail, offices and parks can be safer places.
Just to mention a couple of the measure we put forward in the guide. When blocks are smaller, its harder for vehicles to speed up, as the stopping distance required between blocks and signalized intersections requires lower speeds. Research shows, however, that more intersections can mean more crashes, though because of slower speeds, injuries and fatalities can be fewer. Avoiding superblocks also prevents dangerous midblock crossings.
Evidence from Latin American cities shows that the chance of a vehicle collision and pedestrian crash increases by 6 percent for every additional 1 meter of pedestrian crossing distance.
And having access to nearby destinations means less driving. A meta-analysis on travel and the built environment found that vehicle kilometers traveled is most strongly related to measures of accessibility to destinations, meaning that efforts to increase destination accessibility can decrease vehicle travel and improve overall safety (Ewing and Cervero 2010).
Its also about calming traffic on the streets to make sure speed limits are not only safe, but the design of streets matches those speed limits. We provide a summary of several measures that can help make this happen, including speed humps, speed cushions, chicanes, road narrowing efforts such as chokers and curb extensions, raised pedestrian crossing, traffic circles and roundabouts in the right situations.
Speed humps are cheap, practical ways to slow vehicles to safer levels. And speed humps can be designed for different speeds depending on their height and lengtdh. Here we see a speed hump in a school zone in Mexico City to calm traffic. The research available shows that newly installed humps reduced mean vehicle speeds from 36.4 to a designed speed of 24.4 km/hr in one case.
Raised pedestrian crossings are another easy to implement but far too unseen intervention. But places like Bogota shown have put several in place. One study has shown a 10 percent reduction speeds for cars turning onto these streets, as the priority really is put on the pedestrian crossing, not the crossing vehicle.
Evidence from Latin American cities shows that the chance of a vehicle collision and pedestrian crash increases by 6 percent for every additional 1 meter of pedestrian crossing distance. So putting in curb extensions like the one seen here in Joinville, Brazil make crossing more comfortable, quicker and a nicer, little pocket of green.
Arterials, or main roads with retail and other uses are often the largest source of traffic fatalities with cars moving fast and lots of people on the street. Our research from Mexico City shows….
And in Mexico City, there are good things happening to create started here in the US as “complete streets” and in Mexico “Calles Completas.” This arterial changed from a strange contra-flow switch in traffic directions and one without dedicated transit or decent active transport infrastructure to one with green sidewalks, a protected cycle lane and a dedicated BRT lane. We’re looking now at the impact of this change but based on other corridors in the city we expect to see a 40% drop in fatalities and injuries because of these changes.
But simple, less dramatic changes to arterials can improve safety. Just placing a median refuge island, as shown here in Paris, can make crossing easier and lower speeds of passing traffic. FHWA study has demonstrated a decrease in percentage of pedestrian crashes and casualties by 57+ percent in the U.S.
We devoted a chapter to just pedestrian space. There is a need for guidance on providing basic sidewalk space but also in providing totally pedestrianized streets, shared streets, taking away space for so called street plazas, school zones and closing streets to cars on weekends.
Urban residents in cities we’ve looked at are certainly not pleased with how things currently stand. Surveys we’ve conducted show very poor satisfaction levels with the condition of sidewalks and safety crossing streets.
Evidence from the U.S. shows that pedestrian crashes are more than twice as likely to occur in places without sidewalks; streets with sidewalks on both sides have the fewest crashes. So projects like this, from Sao Paulo, to take away the commandeering of pedestrian space and replace it with even, consistent sidewalks can improve safety and comfort. This is great need for this in many cities.
We can also go to full pedestrianization of streets, as seen here in Izmir, Turkey. Research shows pedestrianizing streets can reduce crashes by 50 percent or more in and around these zones, but designers should pay special attention to ensure crashes don’t go up on the buffer areas.
Taking away some underused street space can also help safety. New York has led the way with its street plazas, but the practice of creating quality public space through the pocket park shown here in Mexico City or the parklet in Sao Paulo can help. In New York, the city has found a decrease of 16 percent in speeding and a 26 percent reduction in injury crashes along streets that these pedestrian plazas.
Bicycling is dangerous, and most cities have bicyclists, so making it not only safe for cyclists but growing a safe cycling city helps overall safety levels. We cover some of the basics, such as creating connected networks, protecting cyclists, especially at intersections on busy streets and other tools such as shared bicycle streets.
Safety improvements come most for cycling when a comprehensive plan is put in place to provide a connected network of safer cyling infrastructure. Somee of you may be familiar with the safety in numbers theory, but really the safety comes from better infrastructure, and the numbers from the comfort found in it. We’ve seen this in places like Copenhagen and Minneapolis here in the US. And recently a report from our friends at Despacio in Bogota, Colombia found that adding more than 100 km (62 miles) of bikeways helped reduce bicyclist deaths by 47.2 percent between 2003 and 2013 , and increased bicycle use from just over 3 percent of all daily trips to over 6 percent. So providing this network is key, and here are some ways this can happen.
On busy roads, cyclists need protection. We provide guidance on protected bicycle lanes that involve physically separating cyclists from traffic on busy roads. A new cycle track in New York has reduced speeding rates from 74 percent to 20 percent. Crashes and injuries of all kinds dropped by 63 percent.
We have examples of these type of facilities emerging in places like Mexico City, where in fact a great recent report by IDB shows the city has And China is not erasing its bicycle history but starting some infrastructure to provide dedicated space for a population with a historical bicycle culture.
But attention really needs to be paid to intersections, where bicycle-vehicle crashes can happen the most. We show how things like increasing visibility between bicyclists and vehicles can help improve safety. We also found research showing that speed-reducing countermeasures, such as raised bicycle crossings have shown to improved drivers’ visual search patterns in favor of the cyclists coming from the right, giving more time to notice cyclists
Off street bicycle paths are kind of like bicycle freeways. They don’t have cars and bicyclists can move freely. Off-street bike paths have been found to be one of the safest bicycle routes, but there is one important piece many cities don’t consider. Separating bike and pedestrian tracks within off street trails provides better safety compared to mixed-user paths, and this example from Bogota (thanks to this picture we borrow from former mayor Enrique penalosa) shows that good practice.
Other bicycle infrastructure can also help. For example, collision rates on well-designed bicycle boulevards have been shown to be two to eight times lower than those on parallel, adjacent arterial routes. Several of these have emerged in US cities, such as the one shown here in Minneapolis.
Our final chapter focuses on access to high quality mass transit – the safest of all modes – needs to be safe itself. We draw on our existing body of work in creating traffic safety on bus priority systems to highlight some key areas. I want to suggest folks take a look at our publication Traffic Safety for Bus Priority Systems to look this issue more, but in general, we show how quality BRT can reduce traffic fatalities by around 50% on these corridors. But one thing I want to mention specifically here is access to transit stations.
Mass transit has a lot of people moving to and from it, so making this a safe connection is key. Often a corridor might be built or run without much consideration of this, so things like providing the traffic calming, or raised pedestrian crossings to stations as seen here in Istanbul can help improve safety.
Last but not least, I want to emphasize the usefulness of data. Creating better data and better analysis of data can enable us to implement all of the elements we present in the guide. Using data to create heat maps and black spot analysis to identify high crash locations can allow practitioners to target those locations with the needed solutions to improve safety. Improving data will mean improving safety in cities.
Thanks to all for listening, and I encourage you to look further into the guide which more comprehensively covers these issues than this presentation. I also want to acknowledge some of the similar work in this area by colleagues outside of WRI. Our friends at ITDP have helped create the Ciclociudades guide for cycling in Mexico which is being used in Latin America, and its guide on bicycle share systems. UNEP has provided guidance on non-motorized transport in Africa. The work to account for bicycling facilities and opinions of urban environment by IDB are very valuable. And we draw from several guides and research from the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, and India, including our own colleagues work from India on safe urban development and Brazil on bicycling. Lastly, I want to mention the work of NACTO here in the US to create street design guides, and also mention we are eager to see a global street design guide coming from them this fall.
Which all brings us to the point of how we can actually implement this work and scale it up to save lives, and I look forward to this discussion on the panel and engaging with everyone here. Clayton Lane is the WRI Ross Center Deputy Director and I am going to hand it over to him to introduce our panelists.