Ohio Chapter

NEWS RELEASE

State Spends Just 72 Cents Per Person on Pedestrian Projects

COLUMBUS—The Ohio Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) released a national report that finds Ohio is spending just 72 cents per person of its federal transportation funds on pedestrian safety, even though over 7 percent of traffic deaths are pedestrians. The report says nearly 200 pedestrians died in Ohio in 2000 and 2001.

The report, “Mean Streets 2002,” analyzes federal safety and spending databases to rank the danger faced by pedestrians and assess the investment in pedestrian safety. The study also ranks metropolitan areas according to their danger to walkers, by calculating deaths per capita and the amount of walking in the community. The most dangerous large metro area was Orlando, Florida, followed by Tampa and West Palm Beach. In Ohio, Columbus ranked 38th, the Cleveland-Akron area ranked 41st, and the Cincinnati-Hamilton area ranked 49th.

“Our transportation dollars should be doing much more to protect children walking to school, seniors on the way to the store, and everyone else who walks,” says David Burwell, President of the Surface Transportation Policy Project. “Our investment in pedestrian safety should match the percentage of traffic deaths that are pedestrians.”

The report finds that dangerous streets are discouraging people from walking and may be contributing to the rise in obesity. According to federal transportation and health surveys, the portion of Americans walking to work has dropped 26 percent in the last ten years, while the percentage of overweight Americans has grown by 60 percent.

Wide, high-speed streets without sidewalks and few crossing points increase the dangers faced by walkers, according to the report, which lists some of the deadliest stretches of road in the United States.

Congress will have an historic opportunity to address this issue next year, as it takes up renewal of the nation’s surface transportation law, TEA-21. At issue is how over $200 billion in federal transportation funds will be spent. Ohio has spent $3.7 billion on transportation projects since TEA-21 took effect in 1998, but only $0.72 per person on walking and bicycling safety projects. Sen. Voinovich will play a key role as a member of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee.

“We call on Sen. Voinovich to prioritize making our communities safer for walking,” said Shannon Harps, Conservation Program Coordinator for the Ohio Chapter of the Sierra Club. “We need a Safe Routes to Schools program to make it safe for kids to keep healthy by walking to school.”

The groups made the following recommendations to protect the lives of walkers:

1. Match the Level of Funding to the Level of the Problem. If 12 percent of traffic fatalities are pedestrians, a similar amount of safety funding should be directed to protecting walker safety. Investments in pedestrian facilities should be highest in the areas where the most walkers are killed.
2. Build Walk-Friendly Streets. State and local governments should include safe access for bicyclists and pedestrians in all non-restricted transportation facilities.
3. Safe Routes to School Program in TEA-
4. Create a new federal source of funding for building bicycle and pedestrian facilities and calming traffic around schools in the next federal transportation law.

The full report is available at the following Website: http://www.transact.org/report.asp?id=202.

The Sierra Club is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization with 700,000 members nationwide. The Ohio Chapter, chartered in 1968, has 18,000 members. The Sierra Club has been a leader in an effort to promote more livable communities that provide people with a variety of safe transportation choices.

STPP is a national not for profit coalition of more than 800 organizations working to ensure that transportation policy and investments strengthen the economy, promote social equity, and make communities more livable.

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