Pedestrian Safety Suffers in Low-Income Areas

Focusing on street safety conditions in Miami as a case study of larger findings, a Governing magazine analysis finds that pedestrians are much more likely to be killed by cars in impoverished neighborhoods.

August 5, 2014, 2pm PDT | James Brasuell | @CasualBrasuell

Describing Miami’s 79th Street as an "especially dangerous thruway," Mike Maciag says the street "exemplifies a troubling reality of urban areas across the country: Pedestrian deaths are much more common in low-income areas than in better-off parts of a city."

Maciag's article explains a Governing analysis "of accident location coordinates for the more than 22,000 pedestrians killed nationwide between 2008 and 2012." Their finding: "poorer neighborhoods have disproportionately higher rates of pedestrian deaths." Stated in more detail:

"the bottom third of Census tracts, in terms of per capita income, recorded pedestrian fatality rates twice that of higher income tracts."

"Metro-area Census tracts with poverty rates below the national rate of 15 percent registered 5.3 deaths per 100,000 residents over the five-year period, while in high-poverty areas where more than a quarter of the population lives in poverty, the rate was 12.1."

Governing's coverage of the analysis includes more a lot more detail and storytelling from Maciag, as well as full results and methodology of the analysis, and an interactive map of fatal pedestrian accidents.

Full Story:

Pedestrians Dying at Disproportionate Rates in America's Poorer Neighborhoods

Published on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 in Governing