Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Dangerous by design

This is a shocking report from Smart Growth America on traffic fatalities in the US. Since 2010, the number of pedestrians struck and killed has increased by almost 75%. As of 2022, this number sat at just over 7,500 fatalities per year:

Here are also the top 20 most deadly metro areas:

Not surprisingly, these hot spots tend to be in the south, as opposed to in older northern cities. And that’s because these tend to be car-oriented places. As the name of the report suggests, they are “dangerous by design.” If you optimize for cars, it means you’re making trade-offs in other places.

Charts: Smart Growth America

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2 responses to “Dangerous by design”

  1. Bob K Avatar
    Bob K

    It is interesting for me that this seems to be related to city design only by the organization. One of the issues is surely the continuing trend to ever-larger trucks being purchased. Massive trucks with huge blind spots are the number one and two sellers in North America. I am confident that city design is also to blame, but the shockingly steep climb of these numbers must also be attributable to the popularity of these vehicles.

    Reply
  2. T-bone Avatar
    T-bone

    Any similar stats for Canada?

    Reply

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