Pittsburgh Launches Pedestrian Safety Action Plan

In an effort to support the city's mobility goals–which include reducing pedestrian deaths to zero, improving access to fresh food for all neighborhoods, and making one-mile trips easy and accessible without a car–"Pittsburgh's Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) is launching the city's first pedestrian safety action plan." As reported by Katie Pyzyk in Smart Cities Dive, the plan "contains 10 priority strategies and actions to improve pedestrian safety that the department will implement over the next few years."

"Throughout, the plan emphasizes the need for inclusive and equitable solutions," particularly those targeting "vulnerable street users" such as the elderly, children, and people of color who "are disproportionately represented in crashes and fatalities." Pittsburgh's efforts follow other federal and local plans to eliminate traffic deaths and improve pedestrian safety. "[I]f we're going to be an inclusive city, if we're going to be a safe city, if we're going to be a livable city ... we really need to enhance and improve all the pedestrian environments," says DOMI director Karina Ricks. 

"Like Pittsburgh, some cities devise dedicated pedestrian safety plans, while others incorporate that element into broader city plans. Milwaukee and Baltimore, for instance, are implementing complete streets policies that include pedestrian safety improvement elements."