The city of Orlando, Florida is examined as the worst example of the nation's pedestrian safety crisis.
"There are roughly 25 to 30 collisions involving pedestrians every day in the greater Orlando region," writes Patrick Sisson, sharing information sourced from the Florida Highway Patrol.
"These horrific crashes only hint at the toll that traffic takes on pedestrians and cyclists in and around Orlando, which Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design reports have ranked most dangerous for pedestrians in all but one edition since 2009."
What makes Orlando different? According to Sisson, it's the cities complete commitment to designing streets built only for cars and speed. Sisson documents the development history of roadway infrastructure in the Orlando region back to 1956, and also lists some of the actions already underway to reduce the fatal costs of that design and engineering history. The efforts of Bill Hattaway, the city's transportation director (described by Sisson as an "urbanist reformer") are also discussed in detail.
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