Conclusion

On a rainy winter’s day in 2020, a group of Nashville’s top elected officials gathered at Metro Courthouse and stood solemnly behind a collection of empty shoes. That day, January 18, was Nashville’s Day of Remembrance for victims of traffic violence, an event organized by local nonprofit groups. Each pair of shoes—thirty-two in total—represented a pedestrian killed on city streets in 2019. A handful of Metro Council people took the microphone and read the names of the victims, one after another.

The year 2019 had been the most dangerous year for walkers in the city’s history. Compared to 2018, ten additional people had lost their lives. The thirty-two dead represented a near tripling of the number killed a decade before, in 2009.1

The event did not attract a huge crowd, but it seemed to be effective anyway. On hand was the city’s new mayor, John Cooper. At times in his political career, Cooper had resisted addressing the issue. As a city council member in 2017, for example, he had opposed a $30 million sidewalk spending measure. At that time, only 37 percent of the street network in Nashville-Davidson County had sidewalks.2

But Cooper spoke at the event, telling attendees that he would commit to Vision Zero. “One of the most substantive ways that the city of Nashville can honor [the victims’] memory is to make a lasting and effective change to our transportation infrastructure, and a change that protects all of our residents,” he said.3 His remarks were not a guarantee of broader changes in any way, but they were a verbal commitment at least, a glimpse of what is needed, a way forward.

The problem of pedestrian deaths in the United States will not be solved without an initial recognition of the problem. Step one is to reframe. “Pedestrian deaths are preventable deaths,” Lindsey Ganson with Walk Bike Nashville told the crowd that morning. “We know they’re largely preventable when the city invests in infrastructure and enforcement.”4

In 2010, without groups like Walk Bike Nashville, each of the thirty-two victims being remembered that day—as long as the driver was not drunk and stayed at the scene—would likely have been blamed individually. The deaths would not have been viewed as a distinct issue. If a fatality did rise to a notable level, perhaps local police would spend a few shifts ticketing jaywalkers, which would almost certainly have racially discriminatory effects. In this respect, a shift is under way in Nashville and many other cities, but there is a long way to go.

Bringing families of the victims—like Amy Cohen in New York City—face-to-face with lawmakers at such events can play a key role in shifting dialogue by sharing their stories and presenting the moral basis for change. Walk Bike Nashville had hoped to launch a chapter of Families for Safe Streets, but the group could not find anyone from the thirty-two families who were affected in 2019 who was willing to speak at the event. “There’s a lot of work to do for people to feel supported,” said Ganson. “There’s a lot of stigma about pedestrian deaths. It’s very sudden and unexpected. The default is that it’s always the pedestrian’s fault. I think that’s what the families are told too.”5

It will take a big cultural shift to move from seeking the cause in individual behavior to the wider context in which pedestrian deaths occur. But these types of shifts in public consciousness around other social issues have been seen before. For example, “opioid addiction was first viewed as a moral failing,” said Tara Goddard, a professor at Texas A&M whose research has examined media biases in pedestrian deaths. “But now that we have a better understanding of how pharmaceutical companies lobby doctors and flood the market with opioids, we see it as a system issue. When we blame the individual like with obesity or smoking, we aren’t going to support system change or government intervention.”6

So far, there has not been a major consciousness-raising event about pedestrian deaths the way that the Harvey Weinstein allegations dramatized sexual assault and gave birth to the #MeToo movement or the way that little Laura Lamb, in a wheelchair, gave a human face to the problem of drunk driving. Groups like Walk Bike Nashville are trying to promote that reframing, but their reach has been limited, and the work is ongoing.

Step two is to make changes to infrastructure. Drivers and pedestrians are human and prone to misjudgment, but a forgiving infrastructure environment can prevent them from dying when they do make a mistake. Groups like Walk Bike Nashville have campaigned for years to promote the kinds of systemic solutions that are needed to reduce not just pedestrian deaths, but traffic deaths overall. In 2014, for example, the organization released a report highlighting the fifty most dangerous corridors in Davidson County, but four years later, when it updated the report to coincide with the Day of Remembrance, only four locations had seen any real pedestrian safety improvements.7

Pedestrians need complete sidewalks to be safe. They need comprehensive street lighting. They need curb ramps so that wheelchair users are not stuck in the street. They need bus stops that are located in safe places, preferably with shelter. They need traffic signals that give them enough time to cross. They need crosswalks at locations where pedestrians really want and need to cross, not just where it is expedient for drivers. And because drivers are so bad about yielding at uncontrolled crosswalks, those crosswalks often need additional treatments such as raised speeding tables and flashing lights.

That is basic safety infrastructure. Without it, a certain number of people will be killed.

“It’s not money that is the problem,” said Norman Garrick, a recently retired professor of civil engineering at the University of Connecticut. “It’s really how we’re thinking: that roads are for cars. Right now, everything is governed by the need to move cars and the fear that if we don’t move cars quickly, something bad [will] happen.”8

More focus is needed on reducing vehicle speeds, especially in urban areas. The design tactics used to make “slow roads,” like those common in the Western European countries with the best traffic safety outcomes, should be common in the United States, said Garrick. “A slow road is one where it’s not really physically possible to go very fast,” he said. “It is elevated at the intersection for example.”9

In Sweden and other leading cities of Europe, this kind of safety engineering has been perfected, with narrowed intersections and bollards that force turning drivers to slow down, among other interventions. “In America, we are putting up signs that encourage people to go slower, but the road still encourages people to go pretty fast,” said Garrick. Essentially all the roads in urban areas, Garrick said, should be slow roads, but so far, even the most forward-thinking places have only made a limited commitment to change, he said. “Even in places like New York and Washington that have decided that we need to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists, the status quo still favors cars over all other solutions,” Garrick said. “If you want to put in a bike lane . . . the first question is, How is it going to affect cars? We’re trying to have it both ways.”10

There is unfinished work to bring about this kind of sea change in the field of traffic engineering. It is inexcusable at this moment when so many pedestrians are dying on streets that the industry often uses its authority to stand in the way of low-cost, life-saving measures, hiding behind formulas, bureaucratic norms, or cost.

In addition, it is crucial that the infrastructure changes are well targeted. To have an impact, infrastructure improvements cannot just happen in wealthy, white neighborhoods where almost everyone has alternatives to walking and taking the bus.

In Nashville, for example, pedestrian deaths are clearly concentrated in poorer areas. In 2019, there were no deaths in West Nashville—“the historic, wealthy area,” Ganson said. “Those more established historic neighborhoods have sidewalks,” she added. “They don’t have arterial streets running through, and if they do, they’re very separated from the rest of the neighborhood.” There are “one hundred years of racist planning” to make up for, said Ganson.11

When it comes to infrastructure changes, lower-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color should receive special attention. As Emiko Atherton, director of the National Complete Streets Coalition, said, “Decades of racist policies—and people in power pushing for those policies—created deeply inequitable cities where white neighborhoods prospered and communities of color suffered. The solutions we need to heal those wounds and build places that are safe for everyone are right in front of us.”12

Other areas where at-risk groups may be concentrated—for example, in areas with lots of older adults, a large homeless population, or where there is a lot of drinking happening—need special attention as well.

In addition, the role that the auto industry plays in the crisis cannot be ignored. Auto safety innovation has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but until now, pedestrians and cyclists have not benefited and indeed have suffered a great deal due to recent industry trends.

Even as pedestrian deaths have reached crisis levels, the auto industry has promoted larger and more deadly SUVs and high-horsepower sports cars that data have definitively shown kill people on foot. There is more than enough evidence for federal regulators (namely, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to step in and require automakers to make life-saving changes, as has been done in other nations. In fact, those changes might already be in place were it not for the indifference of the Trump administration’s Department of Transportation. An additional problem is lack of grassroots energy around regulatory changes that could save hundreds or thousands of lives.

Automated features that have been shown to improve safety, such as automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection, are low-hanging fruit and should be required on all cars. Even failing that, they could be required on the vehicles known to be especially dangerous—SUVs, pickup trucks, and small, high-horsepower cars—but achieving those kinds of life-saving regulations will require wider recognition, organized effort, and financial support for those efforts.

In addition, we need further research about the effects of aftermarket vehicle modifications, including bull bars that are affixed to the front of cars and trucks. Many buyers (including, notably, public police departments) may not be aware that by purchasing these kinds of products, not only do they impose safety risks on others, but they increase their own risk of being killed or injured in a crash. Although vehicle regulators have never taken on these kinds of modifications in the United States, the escalating carnage that pedestrians are experiencing on American roads provides an opportunity to reexamine this stance.

In short, there is a lot of work to do, and it will primarily be up to ordinary people to do it. That work often looks like the Day of Remembrance demonstration in Nashville: not especially splashy or earth-shattering, but persistent.

Walk Bike Nashville had been quietly building to that moment for a long time. Before the 2016 election cycle, the group, working with an array of organizations from AARP Tennessee to the local chapter of the Urban League, put together a platform calling for a number of reforms to address the problem. The group asked for a Vision Zero policy and also asked for a public process centering on safety, equity, and public feedback.

In the end, the platform was a very broad, conceptual document.13 The group asked for local politicians to endorse it and was largely successful. Twenty members of the Nashville Metro Council and the mayor signed on. In every council race in which one of the candidates endorsed the platform, the winning candidate did so.

The group has also been working to demonstrate what additional on-the-ground reforms could look like. In 2017, Walk Bike Nashville and the Tennessee Department of Transportation partnered on a demonstration project at Nolensville Pike and Welshwood Drive, the most dangerous intersection in the city. This intersection is near two bus stops with very high ridership as well as a big shopping center. Seven people were killed at this location between 2010 and 2017, when advocates came forward with some inexpensive materials and a plan to help.

They built two temporary median islands enforced by steel bollards. On top were placed two big yellow signs warning drivers of the state law: to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. Pedestrians were also given a button-activated flashing warning light.

As a proof of concept, the demonstration was a success. Since it was installed about two years ago, there have been no additional fatalities there.

There is a lot more to do. But the mayor of Nashville’s words at the Day of Remembrance Ceremony, said Ganson, meant that some of the important groundwork could begin and that the city would begin to put together the necessary data to evaluate the problem and then develop next steps. “That’s a huge step forward,” said Ganson.14