KC Star front-page story on the Share the Road Task Force.
Originally published at: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/front/15998416.htm
By DONALD BRADLEY
The Kansas City Star
November 13, 2006
“It’s like we’ve forgotten safety rules and what signals mean.”
Deb Ridgway, alternative coordinator of transportation for Bridging the Gap
Lots of children learn about pedestrian safety, then grow into adults who walk and jog on the wrong side of the road, at dusk, wearing headphones.
Or they cross busy streets in business suits while talking on cell phones. They seemingly don’t know what a crosswalk is, which could actually be a good thing because, authorities say, a lot of drivers around Kansas City don’t know they’re required to yield at crosswalks anyway.
But now, in light of at least 16 crossing fatalities in the metropolitan area so far this year — 13 pedestrians and three bicyclists — a push is on to remind people about the safety lessons they learned years ago. It includes efforts to refit the area’s traffic control systems as urban redevelopment, higher gas prices, environmental concerns and health awareness put more walkers and bikers on the streets.
As part of the Share the Road Safety Task Force, Lee’s Summit police on Friday conducted a “walking audit” to determine how long it takes senior citizens from John Knox Village to walk across a six-lane parkway to get to a nearby shopping center. The intersection’s traffic signal will be recalibrated accordingly.
“We at least need to get them to the center island,” said Police Sgt. Mike Childs.
The task force is a consortium of Kansas City, Lee’s Summit, Parkville, Raytown and Leawood law enforcement officers, public works officials, and representatives from youth associations and senior groups.
Other partners include the Missouri Department of Transportation, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Missouri Bicycle Federation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Much of the task force’s work is to educate. Other goals are more tangible, such as reconfiguring traffic lights to include “walk” signals. The effort also includes a push for more sidewalks and bike lanes.
According to the Mid-America Regional Council, 5,000 pedestrians are killed and 85,000 injured each year in the United States. The worry is that those numbers will increase as more Americans, particularly in Midwestern car-is-king cities such as Kansas City, take to walking or pedaling to work and for fun.
“We built our community for the automobile,” said Michael Briggs, a transportation planner for MARC. “So much of our infrastructure built in the ’70s and ’80s was done the easiest and cheapest, and disregarded the pedestrian.”
The obligation now, Briggs said, is to reconsider how sidewalks, crosswalks and traffic signals can make streets safer for walking and biking.
Deb Ridgway, alternative coordinator of transportation for Bridging the Gap, got the idea for the project from her frustration over recent pedestrian and cycling deaths.
“It’s like we’ve forgotten safety rules and what signals mean,” Ridgway said. “Drivers don’t yield to pedestrians anywhere in this city except on the (Country Club) Plaza. Anywhere else, if we have to wait for somebody to cross the street, we yell and scream and honk.”
The underlying problem, said Tim Bowers, director of risk management at John Knox Village, is that drivers, walkers, runners, cyclists and sometimes even skateboarders use the same roadways.
“That means we are always going to be running into each other,” Bowers said.
As part of the task force, Bowers is working to encourage cities to increase pedestrian safety for senior citizens, who often have decreased coordination and mobility.
Childs, the Lee’s Summit police officer, said part of the concern is the growing number of multi-lane parkways in suburban communities.
“This metro area is in love with parkways, and that means we have to go back to having more crosswalks, because so many people walk now,” Childs said.
The problem, he added, is that many drivers don’t understand crosswalk rules.
“My daughter lives in a college town where people are used to crosswalks,” Childs said.
“When she comes back home, I have to remind her that drivers here don’t know what a crosswalk is.”
To reach Donald Bradley, call (816) 234-7810 or send e-mail to dbradley@kcstar.com.
