Study highlights links between land use and road safety

A new study from  Florida Atlantic and Columbia universities affirms the relationship between land use, urban design and traffic safety, writes Robert Steuteville in Public Square.

The study examined hundreds of miles of arterial roads, where most pedestrian and bicyclist deaths occur. To assess the impact of land use, the researchers correlated the location of "household-supporting retail and commercial uses" with high levels of fatal and injury accidents. "The research shows a very strong correlation between the location of household-supporting businesses on urban arterials and the devastating crashes."

The researchers say in light of their findings, planners should take an active role in relocating these types of businesses away from hazardous locations. "Addressing this risk demands a shift in planning practice: revising zoning and site-planning standards to explicitly account for safety, redirecting high-risk uses away from arterial corridors, and applying analytic tools that identify and mitigate latent land use hazards during the planning and project development process."

According to the study authors, cities can work to change the location of stores through updated zoning codes while also upgrading roadways with crosswalks and other safety interventions.