The "distracted pedestrian" is a myth, but distracted engineers and planners are another topic.

Kudos to David Aebersold for broaching the topic of pedestrian safety during last Thirsday's city council meeting. Dan Coffey and Greg Phipps chimed in, and Phipps mentioned the scant slowing of traffic occurring since last year's paving project disguised as street grid reform.

Recalling my recent chat with HWC Engineering's Jim Rice, when Rice seemed proudest of HWC's achievement in keeping the heavy trucks rolling through residential neighborhoods, perhaps Phipps at long last is beginning to see that without Jeff Speck's principled approach to comprehensive street grid reform, two-way automotive friction alone cannot magically produce slowing or walkability -- and the majority of bicycle-friendly design components never made it past Jeff Gahan's ingrained (but highly monetized) cowardice.

I intend to attend tomorrow morning's Bored of Works meeting, which Aebersold and Bob Caesar vowed to attend.

Why the ‘distracted pedestrian’ is a myth, by Alissa Walker (Curbed)

Most walkers are not texting when crossing streets, says a new study

Pedestrian deaths have hit a three-decade high in the U.S., prompting some cities to mount campaigns warning walkers to put down their phones and pay more attention. But some compelling new research reveals that pedestrians probably aren’t texting themselves to death.

While the term “distracted walking” has become a way to pin the blame on pedestrians for supposedly looking at their devices instead of the sidewalk, there hasn’t been much evidence provided to prove smartphone-using walkers are at fault when collisions occur. In fact, most states don’t even include pedestrian behavior as a factor in crash reports.

But a new study published by a group of Northern Arizona University engineering professors in Transportation Research Record looked at how 3,038 people used crosswalks in New York City and Flagstaff, Arizona, and concluded that a large majority of pedestrians—86.5 percent—did not exhibit “distracted” behavior ...

According to this study, distracted DRIVING is 100 times worse than previously thought, but pedestrians are easier to blame.

I won't say "distracted walking" doesn't happen, because I've seen it and done it a few times myself. The point to remember is that someone like me, walking "distracted," carries poundage in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

Drivers are elevated for coddling in many and varied ways, but the point stays the same: they're capable of wreaking far greater havoc, their responsibility is greater, and the law enforcement apparatus should prosecute accordingly.

The state of Indiana hired a consultant to determine why pedestrian deaths have risen, and the result is mostly car-centric bilge and claptrap, but at least one good point emerges.

Increase In Indiana Pedestrian Deaths Follows Concerning National Trend, by Sarah Fentem (WBAA)

Retting says the combination of a good economy and lower gas prices mean more drivers on the road: going to work, traveling on vacations and visiting restaurants—and bars.

“At a minimum, half of pedestrian fatalities are alcohol related,” Retting says. “And that doesn’t begin to take into account drivers and pedestrians that are impaired by alcohol, just not at that high of level.”

As an aside, "more drivers on the road" also helps to explain why the added traffic lane never actually reduces congestion. It's called induced demand, and you can look it up during cigarette breaks while you lobby for 10-lane highways to get you to work, when just leaving a few minutes earlier costs taxpayers so very much less.

Getting back to the heart of the matter:

100 times worse than we thought: Insights from a Zendrive’s 2018 Distracted Driving Snapshot

Distracted driving is far worse than we thought. How bad? 100 times worse than the most reliable data available. Zendrive’s 2018 Distracted Driving Snapshot reveals that 69-million drivers use their phones behind the wheel every day, far higher than the 660,000 daily distracted drivers reported by government data.

We also know that we really shouldn’t be playing with our phones while driving, as it contributes to 26 percent of all collisions. But until now, we didn’t have accurate data on the extent of the problem. To mark Zendrive’s 100-billionth mile of driver data analyzed, we tried to quantify how bad the distracted driving problem is in the US ...

 ... Zendrive estimates that 69-million drivers use their phones each day
Compare our findings to previous research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA): NHTSA estimates that 660,000 drivers use their phones during daylight hours. Based on our experience on the streets everyday, these numbers seemed low, and our analysis found that they were low, really low.

Today's must-read: "Distracted pedestrian laws aren’t really about the evidence. They are about maintaining the privileges of car culture."

Far more likely, isn't it?

The Baffler nails it (link below).

All I can say is that I'll do my level best to make this topic an issue in the next round of municipal elections in 2019, irrespective of political parties and candidates.

New Albanians should be disgusted at the vast extent to which Jeff Gahan's clueless coterie squandered the rare opportunity to initiate genuine street grid cultural change in spite of spending millions on projects that while needed, like two-way streets, were cynically and timidly implemented to preserve the car-centric status quo rather than push the city forward.

It remains: speed kills. 

Our next mayor won't necessarily be compelled to tear it all down and start over, but recovering from Gahan's patented shortsightedness will take time and more money. I regret it, but there it is, and "next" will have to deal with it. Let's just make sure there is a "next."

#FireGahan2019

Who’s Afraid of the “Petextrian”? by Jordan Fraade (The Baffler)

The phantom of the “distracted pedestrian” haunts America

 ... “Distracted pedestrian” laws aren’t really about the evidence, though. They are about maintaining the privileges of car culture as that culture is about to confront an enormous shift in the balance of civic and technological power—one that threatens to permanently upend the relationship between drivers and pedestrians.

SNIP

Despite the best efforts of forward-thinking urban planners, we can fully expect the profitable regime of car-sponsored ped-shaming to continue, egged on by news reports that smear dead pedestrians, government agencies that treat walking as a suspect activity, and car-company executives who accidentally let the mask slip when they’re tasked with programming their driverless cars to respond in crisis situations. This doesn’t mean that crossing the street while distracted on a smartphone is some sort of commendable civic statement, akin to how many New Yorkers view jaywalking. (After one too many close calls, I’ve managed to get in the habit of putting away my own phone when I cross the street—and, yes, I feel much safer for it.) But it does mean that anyone who cares about making cities safer and more equitable should be ready to take the side of pedestrians, even when emotional, error-prone humans are no longer the ones behind the wheel.

People who choose to take in the city with all five senses, rather than observe it behind tinted glass, should have the right to do so without harassment or fear.

The end of the beginning: "Blame the road design, not the phone."

When one's only strong impression about street design is that it should facilitate his or her rapid passage through populated urban areas, certain nuances are bound to be missed -- "steamrolled" might be a better way of putting it.

Here in New Albany, two-way streets are being put into service this month without the ballyhooed "enhanced" crosswalks being finished. The first such crosswalk was installed earlier this year at Main at W. 1st following a period of years during which City hall insisted it couldn't be done.

ASK THE BORED: Tucson's first rainbow crosswalk -- and we get stuck with dozens of lousy anchors enabled by municipal cowardice.

CM David Barksdale added that in his experience, the flashing lights not only fail to make an impression on drivers far too busy checking their iPhones, but also taper off too quickly once daring walkers have waded into the street.

Allow me to add that if solar-activated yellow flashing lights do not convince drivers to yield to pedestrians, soon-to-be ubiquitous sharrow symbols painted on streets do not convince drivers to share space with bicyclists.

Except that Main Street really hasn't been calmed in terms of design, has it?

With everything being done to encourage humans to pass on foot from the south side to the north side, and vice versa, Main Street remains a high-speed wasteland of automobile-centric design all the way from the sewage treatment plant to the beginning of the beautification area on Mansion Row.

The enhanced crosswalk at W. 1st is pleasant enough, but until street design on both sides supports its use -- and assuming drivers give a damn -- it's a very small pleasantry, indeed.

Just remember: The current realization of two-way streets and improved street design is not the end of a necessary adjustment to New Albany's auto-centric streets.

It's just the end of the beginning. Note that yet another media source blames the car for the accident .. not the driver.

BLAME THE ROAD DESIGN, NOT THE PHONE, by Rachel Quednau (Strong Towns)

In one of many recent news stories on "distracted walking," WPVI-TV Philadelphia reports that a "girl chatting on FaceTime [was] struck and critically injured by [a] car in Abington." As Lloyd Alter, writing for TreeHugger, summarizes it:

There was a serious crash recently near Philadelphia; a fourteen year old girl was crossing a street in a crosswalk, in a school zone, with signs posted on posts and tent signs all over the place saying that pedestrians have right of way. There are no trees, no obstructions, no reason whatsoever that the driver couldn't see that there was a pedestrian.

And yet, unsurprisingly, the WPVI-TV article focuses almost solely on the fact that the now-critically injured girl was on her iPhone when she was hit and implies that she is to blame for her injuries. In the 27-sentence article, there are only two mentions of the driver who struck this high schooler—one to explain that the driver stopped the car after the crash and the other mentioning that "no charges have been filed at this time."

In the article, we read about how bystanders dutifully called 911, how first responders rushed the girl to the hospital, and even how school counselors "have been made available to her peers." However, nowhere do we read that local officials are reassessing the design of the road on which this crash occurred to prevent future crashes from happening ...