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Think pedestrian safety

Kristi Kimball Surface Transportation Policy Project San Francisco
Wednesday October 30, 2002

To the Editor: 

 

Pedestrian safety improvements are long overdue in Berkeley, a city that again had one of California's highest pedestrian-vehicle accident rates in 2001. Although its population hovers just above 100,000 residents, more than 100 Berkeley pedestrians have been injured by automobiles in each of the past 10 years, and the city has averaged more than one pedestrian fatality annually during this span. With numbers like these, it is safe to say Berkeley has a significant public health problem on its hands. 

Efforts the city has taken in recent decades to improve pedestrian safety – including the installation of traffic calming devices in some neighborhoods and streetscape improvements on University Avenue – have made Berkeley a safer place for walking than many other cities.  

But the high overall number of injuries and fatalities makes it clear that more work needs to be done to improve pedestrian safety in Berkeley. Just 12 cities in California experienced more pedestrian incidents than Berkeley last year, and these cities all have populations substantially larger than Berkeley's. That's why we urge voters to approve Measure L, a Nov. 5 ballot item that would raise Berkeley property taxes to pay for pedestrian safety improvements. Expected to raise about $10 million over the next decade, Measure L would provide the money the city needs to upgrade existing pedestrian infrastructure and to install additional pedestrian safety and traffic calming devices, such as sidewalk extensions, traffic circles, pedestrian-activated traffic signals and median protectors.  

 

Kristi Kimball  

Surface Transportation Policy Project 

San Francisco