each year in Philadelphia in recent years.
Author
- D. Alex Quistberg
Associate Research Professor, Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel University
Compared with other big cities, Philadelphia’s and is higher than New York and Chicago but lower than Los Angeles and Houston.
Across the U.S., more pedestrians and bicyclists are killed or seriously injured today than any time . Over and over died in traffic collisions in 2022, the most recent year with available data, according to the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
As an injury epidemiologist in Philadelphia who studies , I want to share several evidence-based ways that Philadelphia can make walking, biking and getting around the city safer for everyone.
Protect bike lanes
have physical barriers that prevent drivers from entering the bike lane to park or pass other drivers.
They are particularly useful on high-volume cycling corridors and offer cyclists much more protection than lanes that are merely painted but have no physical barriers or lanes with flexible posts that can be driven over.
Flexible posts, for example, were unable to block the collision that killed , chief pediatric resident at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in Center City in July 2024 when a where Friedes was bicycling.
Research suggests protected bike lanes can . This is likely because they .
The and other have called for the city to and also add protected bike lanes to more roadways that currently don’t have any.
In October 2024, the city announced it will install to protect the bike lanes on Spruce and Pine streets in Center City, including where Friedes was killed. That same month, the City Council unanimously passed a ” ” bill that increases the fines for drivers who stop or park in a bike lane.
Slow drivers down
are engineering and road design strategies that slow vehicles down, make pedestrians more visible to motorists and provide safer crossing areas.
They include , as well as .
Automated speed enforcement, which involves cameras that capture the license plates of drivers who are speeding, has led to on Roosevelt Boulevard. The street, which runs through North and northeast Philadelphia, has been named in various analyses by and organizations. Due to this success, the city plans to to Broad Street in 2025 and potentially other locations in the future.
Traffic-calming measures can by so drivers and public transit riders face fewer delays. They can also by .
Encourage fewer cars on the road
Philadelphia can adopt more policies that promote walking or biking . These include , where streets are closed down to motor vehicle traffic and opened to cyclists and pedestrians. Philadelphia occasionally does this on stretches of in Center City.
Increasing can also reduce . Parking fees generally in cities, which include maintaining parking spaces and infrastructure. The low cost of parking is essentially a . While there are fears that reduced parking hurts business owners, substantial evidence indicates from increased foot and bicycle traffic.
The city could also and , which involves to reduce traffic congestion.
This may be a challenge, considering the recent of New York City, which spent decades preparing for congestion pricing only to have it blocked by the governor, though it seems it of being implemented. How much success New York has with congestion pricing will likely determine the feasibility in Philadelphia and other U.S. cities.
Improve public transportation
and can also help by reducing car use. I believe these measures could help ensure the other policies mentioned above are effective.
However, Philadelphia’s public transportation is currently in a critical state. Facing due to , the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority has proposed beginning Jan. 1, 2025. Gov. Josh Shapiro has spared the system from these cuts for now by , but are needed to ensure the survival and revival of public transportation in Philadelphia.
Addressing , and may also make and more attractive. While violent crimes on Philadelphia’s public transportation have , four people have lost their lives on SEPTA vehicles so far this year.
Collect better data
Considering the increase in road traffic deaths in Philly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, substantial efforts are needed to reach the city’s of reducing road traffic deaths to zero by 2030.
In my view, this includes on transportation use and which interventions and policies are working and which are not.
Road safety surveillance could be improved in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania by linking crash records to other data, such as hospital and clinical data of crash victims, as well as insurance costs to better understand the burden of road traffic injuries on the city and the state.
Data is also key to ensuring public policies are implemented equitably. The includes a focus on lower-income neighborhoods and those with higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities. Those areas have as other neighborhoods, and road traffic injury and deaths rates are 30% higher among people of color compared with white residents.
