TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of urban form and street infrastructure on pedestrian-motorist collisions
AU - Foreman, Taylor
AU - Lin, Meimei
AU - Tu, Wei
AU - Yarbrough, Robert
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - This study examines the impact of urban form and street infrastructure on pedestrian safety in Atlanta, Georgia, and Boston, Massachusetts. With a significant rise in pedestrian fatalities over the past decade, understanding how cities’ built environments influence safety is critical. We conducted geospatial analyses and statistical tests, revealing unique patterns in each city. Atlanta’s sprawling, motorist-oriented layout is associated with increased pedestrian accidents, particularly at crosswalks, due to limited land use diversity, arterial roads, and streets with high speed limits and multiple lanes. In contrast, Boston’s compact, pedestrian-oriented design leads to improved safety, featuring safer pedestrian crossings, greater land use diversity, reduced arterial roads and lower speed limits on single-lane streets. This study also highlights the importance of diverse urban forms and pedestrian infrastructure in shaping pedestrian safety. While population density and land use diversity impact accident rates, the presence of crosswalks and street configurations play crucial roles. Our findings underscore the urgency for urban planners to prioritize pedestrian safety through targeted interventions, such as enhancing crosswalks, reducing speed limits and promoting mixed land use. Future research should explore additional variables, alternative modelling techniques and non-linear approaches to gain a more comprehensive understanding of these complex relationships.
AB - This study examines the impact of urban form and street infrastructure on pedestrian safety in Atlanta, Georgia, and Boston, Massachusetts. With a significant rise in pedestrian fatalities over the past decade, understanding how cities’ built environments influence safety is critical. We conducted geospatial analyses and statistical tests, revealing unique patterns in each city. Atlanta’s sprawling, motorist-oriented layout is associated with increased pedestrian accidents, particularly at crosswalks, due to limited land use diversity, arterial roads, and streets with high speed limits and multiple lanes. In contrast, Boston’s compact, pedestrian-oriented design leads to improved safety, featuring safer pedestrian crossings, greater land use diversity, reduced arterial roads and lower speed limits on single-lane streets. This study also highlights the importance of diverse urban forms and pedestrian infrastructure in shaping pedestrian safety. While population density and land use diversity impact accident rates, the presence of crosswalks and street configurations play crucial roles. Our findings underscore the urgency for urban planners to prioritize pedestrian safety through targeted interventions, such as enhancing crosswalks, reducing speed limits and promoting mixed land use. Future research should explore additional variables, alternative modelling techniques and non-linear approaches to gain a more comprehensive understanding of these complex relationships.
KW - Pedestrian safety
KW - land use diversity
KW - spatial autoregressive models
KW - street infrastructure
KW - urban form
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85193392202&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17457300.2024.2351961
DO - 10.1080/17457300.2024.2351961
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85193392202
SN - 1745-7300
VL - 31
SP - 521
EP - 533
JO - International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion
JF - International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion
IS - 3
ER -