{"id":203084162,"date":"2011-06-09T12:16:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T12:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=203084162"},"modified":"2011-06-09T12:16:02","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T12:16:02","slug":"cul-de-sacs-are-killing-us-public-safety-lessons-from-suburbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=203084162","title":{"rendered":"Cul-de-Sacs Are Killing Us: Public Safety Lessons From Suburbia"},"content":{"rendered":"

from Streetsblog New York City by Tanya Snyder
\nPeople choose suburban neighborhoods over urban ones for myriad reasons: because they can afford it, because the schools are good, because it\u2019s a quiet street, or crimes rates are low, or everyone walks around with baby strollers and golden retrievers, or their family is nearby. But countless other consequences stream from their decision of where to live.
\nIf people can\u2019t or don\u2019t walk or bike where they need to go, they\u2019ve also bought themselves carbon emissions from excessive driving. Hours lost in traffic congestion. Growing waistlines from spending time behind a wheel instead of on two wheels, or two feet. Stress and relationship problems. And even worse: The suburb they chose \u201cbecause it\u2019s safe\u201d ends up being far more dangerous than the city they fled.
\nWilliam Lucy, a professor at the University of Virginia and former chair of the Charlottesville Planning Commission, says that people\u2019s decision making about where to live has such sweeping ramifications that he\u2019s concentrated his professional work on it. And it\u2019s why he focuses on danger and death: specifically, the danger of leaving home.
\nAt a daylong forum yesterday on intelligent cities at the National Building Museum, Lucy could barely wait to lay into cul-de-sacs, which he says were designed for safety but end up being more dangerous than through-streets.
\n\u201cThey turn what should be a 100-yard walk into a two-mile drive, and they put more people in cars for more reasons than they should,\u201d Lucy said. And because they get lulled into a sense of security, he said, parents don\u2019t teach their kids about street safety and the \u201cdifference between street and sidewalk and driveway and yard.\u201d
\nBut the greatest danger to a young child, he said, is being backed over by a motor vehicle \u2013 usually driven by their own parents in their own driveway. Indeed, \u201cbackovers\u201d account for 34 percent of \u201cnon-traffic\u201d vehicular fatalities among children under 15 years old. (\u201cFrontovers\u201d account for another 30 percent, meaning that 64 percent of \u201cnon-traffic\u201d vehicular fatalities still involve children being run over, according to KidsAndCars.org.)
\nBecause these incidents occur on private property, they\u2019re not considered \u201ctraffic\u201d accidents and data is not collected by national traffic safety organizations. Meanwhile, Lucy said, squeamishness over openly reporting on the tragedy of a parent killing his or her own child with a car leads newspapers to bury news of backovers \u2013 missing a \u201cteachable moment.\u201d
\nBack to the \u201cdanger of leaving home\u201d: Lucy compares the rates of homicides by strangers and traffic fatalities. (He studies homicides by strangers because he focuses on the danger of leaving the home: 80 percent of homicides are committed by someone the victim knew.) When people choose \u201csafe\u201d neighborhoods, they are often trying to protect their children (and themselves) from crime. But he finds that the likelihood of dying in a traffic accident is 13 times greater than the likelihood of being killed by a stranger. The most dangerous places, therefore, are those thought to be the safest, Lucy said: the outer suburbs.
\nHe also stressed that \u201cmore crashes\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201cmore danger.\u201d In urban areas, where cars are going slower, there are more crashes \u2014 but lots of them are fender-benders that don\u2019t result in injury. Indeed, Lucy said, you\u2019ll find less danger where there are more crashes. But where cars are traveling at high speeds, crashes are far more serious \u2013 both for people in cars and people biking or walking along the road.
\n\u201cYoung parents are choosing a location based on schools, but unfortunately, there are not enough parents of young children who are sufficiently aware that young children grow up to be teenagers,\u201d Lucy said. \u201cNothing is more dangerous than a teenager in a car on a two-lane road at midnight after having had a little too much to drink.\u201d
\nPerceptions of safety can sabotage actual safety in other surprising ways. Lucy likes to say that it\u2019s the fire department that plans a city. Fire departments argue for wide intersections with gradual corners, even onto tiny cul-de-sac streets, making pedestrian crossings longer and more dangerous. Or the fire department mandates so many expensive fire-code fixes as old buildings get retrofitted for new uses that the project becomes too expensive. And then the outcome is a vacant building, which is far less safe than an occupied one.
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\nhttps:\/\/dc.streetsblog.org\/2011\/06\/07\/cul-de-sacs-are-killing-us-public-safety-lessons-from-suburbia\/<\/a>oldId.20110609121602148<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Streetsblog New York City by Tanya Snyder People choose suburban neighborhoods over urban ones for myriad reasons: because they can afford it, because the schools are good, because it\u2019s a quiet street, or crimes rates are low, or everyone walks around with baby strollers and golden retrievers, or their family is nearby. But countless … <\/p>\n

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