On Foot: Planners Complete Street Safety Inventory One Step at a Time

Montgomery County, Maryland is in the process of developing a Pedestrian Master Plan, as reported in September 2019.

Now Sanjida Rangwala provides an update on the process, which includes a very notable step—actually a whole bunch of steps. To gather information on the safety of street conditions, Montgomery County employees are planning to walk every road and street in the county.

We wrote previously about the county’s #walkinghere campaign, which encourages residents to share the conditions of their walking trips on social media. Now county staff are documenting pedestrian experience throughout the county. They’re starting with major commercial areas, so your neighborhood might not have made it onto the survey yet. (Mine hasn’t). You can follow the progress of the map here.

Rangwala explains how the inventory of street conditions created by this survey process and provides photos to illustrate differences in classification. The article concludes with an appeal for safer streets in the county.