Here’s some recent data, via CityLab, suggesting that Americans are walking less and driving less, but killing more people when they do drive around. (The report is based on data from 2019 to 2022.)
My first reaction to these high-level findings is that they seem to make sense. This time period was the pandemic. And people were locked away at home (though I used to take some seriously long walks around downtown during this dark time).
So I don’t know, I’m not sure we can conclude that walking less is truly a structural phenomenon. Similarly, I’m not sure that we can immediately conclude that cars are becoming increasingly more dangerous.
According to Wikipedia, deaths per capita, deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled, and total deaths, have all been generally declining in the US since the 1960s.
However, I do wonder if there’s some sort of correlation between people walking less and car-related fatalities. The most dangerous streets, in my mind, are often the ones that don’t have a lot of pedestrians.
That’s why, broadly speaking, it feels safer walking around Manhattan than it does Los Angeles. So maybe less people walking is enough to trigger an increase in pedestrian fatalities.
BRANDON DONNELLY 
I wonder if the worldwide roll out of the Vision Zero concept (whereby pedestrian/vehicular deaths are reduced through street design) is factoring into this. In Vision Zero’s country of origin -Sweden – they recorded a rise in pedestrian fatalities after Vision Zero measures were introduced. City Lab reported on this unexpected phenomenon a few years ago. I think that Vision Zero encourages a false sense of greater safety in pedestrians, leading them into danger.
My own neighbourhood (a mid-century ranch bungalow neighbourhood with almost no zoning variety) was Vision Zeroed a few years ago. Our previously wide Cold War era streets, ideal for torque happy ‘69 Chargers and the like were redone with a number of purportedly traffic slowing measures. The built constructions have produced several brake slamming moments as my neighbours and I try not to mow down pedestrians who have ventured onto a street without checking for vehicles in advance. Previously, when a person ventured onto a four lane road in our neighbourhood, there was more time and space to see a pedestrian on the street and react. With a modified two lane intersection or mid block crossing, the ability for a person in a car to react is drastically shortened.
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Very interesting perspective.
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