The latest issue of Inside UW (an electronic newsletter aimed at UW Faculty and Staff) had a story about this, and linked to this UWPD webpage: http://uwpd.wisc.edu/news/bike-and-pedestrian-vehicle-crashes-on-the-rise/ which embedded this video of the pedestrian hit by the car on University Ave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWA7O3Uz7Lc which is just at 13seconds is a few seconds longer than the clip shown on the WKOW report.
I bring this to your attention to point out a few things about how we design and build roads, and for whom: 1) The ped hit in the video was not the first ped to cross, even in that short 13 second video – which shows that people really want to cross here 2) We have not provided a crosswalk across University Ave on the west side of the intersection with Randall – there’s only one on the east side. So if you’re standing in front of Genetics/Biotech here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Madison,+WI+53706/@43.0733849,-89.4091943,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sUbQ6i7bAVRwH7wBnbJsZtg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DUbQ6i7bAVRwH7wBnbJsZtg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D4.6931725%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x8807acc6364f309d:0xf8ee108277795837!6m1!1e1 And you want to go to, e.g. the Subway across the street, you have to walk over to the east side of the intersection with Randall, wait to cross University Ave east of Randall, and then wait to cross Randall. 3 sides of a square is not nearly as convenient as one side. It’s apparent even without the video that people want to cross there, even in the absence of the crosswalk. You can clearly see in the google street view I linked above a sign prohibiting pedestrians. I understand why there’s no crosswalk on the west side of University Ave’s intersection – because the traffic on Randall would back up to Johnson St if cars had to wait for peds to cross in front of them on the west side of the intersection. But this is an excellent example of how our roads often place a higher priority on reducing delay for motor vehicles than on the safety of other street users. I’m sure that the traffic models show that the “Level of Service” of Randall (and presumably Johnson when Randall backed up to Johnson) would fail if a crosswalk were provided there. But it’s time for us to rethink what’s more important – the safety of everyone who uses the street, or the functionality of the street for people in cars. Think the intersection of University Ave and Randall, and the result of the design of this intersection, is an anomaly? Thankfully, a design like that is less common in Madison than a lot of other places in the US. But it’s not unique here. A few years ago another student pedestrian was hit while running across Park St at Spring St to catch the bus (there are bus stops on both sides of Park St). I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that it was reported that the pedestrian wasn’t in a crosswalk, and therefore was in the wrong. But I went to the site after the fact, and it sure looks to me that there’s two crosswalks across Park St there. Only one of them (on the north side of the intersection) is marked as a crosswalk, and I suspect that the other one (on the south side) is not marked as a crosswalk to “encourage” pedestrians to use the marked one on the north side. See the site for yourself, here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+Park+St+%26+Spring+St,+Madison,+WI+53715/@43.0692741,-89.4011904,94m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x8807accc56391deb:0xbd3b57fb3323184!6m1!1e1 Chuck Strawser Pedestrian & Bicycle Transportation Planner Commuter Solutions UW-Madison Transportation Services Visit our University Bicycle Resource Center at Helen C White: http://transportation.wisc.edu/transportation/bike_annex.aspx How are we doing? Take our customer satisfaction survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CommSol_CSSurvey From: Bikies [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Grant Foster via Bikies Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 8:56 AM To: Dave Minden Cc: bikies Subject: Re: [Bikies] Pedestrians & bikes getting hit by cars is increasing I think this is an important point. It reminds me of this Safe Streets press conference from last November: http://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/safestreets/ including the surveillance video compilation that was presented: http://media.cityofmadison.com/Mediasite/Play/0643247b29a24605a8e47fcacb04248f1d Copied below are thoughts I shared with Transit & Parking Commission in relation to the beeping bus discussion several months ago. Police say they'll be stepping up targeting enforcement of people on bikes violating traffic laws, even though the majority of injuries to people on foot and bike are caused by at-fault motor vehicle operators. What targeted enforcement has been done to address this? ___________________________ I was struck by a few things: 1) there was some very dangerous and bad behavior by people on foot, on bike and on skateboard 2) there was some great driving by Metro drivers to avoid injury in many of these cases 3) the montage didn’t include bad behaviors by other motorists 4) the montage didn’t include bad behaviors by Metro drivers. It may not have been intentional, but I think presenting such a compilation as part of a Safe Streets initiative paints a picture that the main problem is with people on foot, bike, or board behaving badly. I don’t think that’s an accurate picture of the reality and feel like this sort of misrepresentation can lead us away from clearly understanding the problems and coming up with appropriate solutions. I appreciate the attention around ped/bike collisions and think it’s appropriate given that 6 out of 7 traffic fatalities in 2013 involved a person on foot or on bike. But as cited in the press conference, only 42% and 32% respectively involved an at fault pedestrian or cyclist. This means that well over half the crashes on our roadways involving a pedestrian or cyclist involves an at fault motor vehicle operator. The numbers may be slightly different for Metro involved collisions, but a focus on changing ped/bike behavior is probably not the highest leverage opportunity. On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 7:39 AM, Dave Minden via Bikies <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: The news said both bike and car were ticketed, yet the whole broadcast focused on bikes being a problem! Dave On Monday, October 12, 2015 12:33 AM, Donna Magdalina via Bikies <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Two different incidents of cars hitting people in Milwaukee also in the news right now. One pedestrian is dead. UW-Madison Police release video of crashes, say bicycle and pedestrian accidents are on the rise Oct 09, 2015 In just nine days, five people were injured on the UW campus while walking or biking. On Friday UW Police released surveillance video of two of those crashes. http://www.wkow.com/story/30227301/2015/10/09/uw-madison-police-say-bicycle-and-pedestrian-crashes-are-on-the-rise _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
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