Pedestrians are not safe

The Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: June 10, 2008

Pedestrian safety in Albemarle County’s growth corridor may be gaining the attention it deserves.

With two deaths and several injuries in less than a year, it’s time not only to focus attention on pedestrian safety but to actually make changes — not just plan, but act.

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors recently heard from a Virginia Department of Transportation engineer about improving pedestrian safety on feeder roads near U.S. 29 North. The major highway itself was not considered.

Proposed solutions chiefly included adding crosswalks and/or pedestrian signals at key intersections. At some locations, pedestrians have crosswalks — but no way to hold back traffic until they can safely cross. At another, they have a pedestrian light, but no crosswalk.

Pedestrian crossing lights are no guarantee of safety, but when they are obeyed they give walkers time to clear the road.

Installing button-activated lights would prevent traffic from incurring an unnecessary wait time when there were no pedestrians.

The light at Albemarle High School would be an obvious location for such an upgrade. Before, during and after school hours, students frequently cross Hydraulic Road to and from school.

The Rio-Berkmar crossing would be another key location. A pedestrian accident occurred there recently.

There are bus stops at three locations near the intersection, but no good way for walkers to get across the two roads to and from buses or businesses.

There are other locations, too, where pedestrians have problems trying to access the bus route safely.

Using the bus or walking to work or shopping is a behavior that Albemarle says it wants to encourage. Now, gasoline prices will encourage that behavior far more effectively than rhetoric.

But with both foot traffic and vehicle traffic increasing in the urban ring, something’s got to give.

And in a “dispute” between a car and a pedestrian (or bicyclist), it’s the pedestrian who gives up safety.

More and better safety features on local roads to protect pedestrians are becoming increasingly necessary.

We’ve already seen the evidence of that need in deaths and injuries.

It’s time to act.