Walking in San Antonio not as dangerous

Last week, Transportation For America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership released a report called Dangerous By Design that exposes what most of us here in San Antonio know all too well– that being a pedestrian on local streets can be a dangerous proposition.  However, compared to the other three big Texas metros– and most other metros nationally for that matter– San Antonio is not too bad.

According to the report, San Antonio ranked 30th out of the 52 metros with 1 million or more people (1st place was the most dangerous) with an average pedestrian fatality rate of 1.39 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2007-2008.  Houston was 8th, DFW 13th, and even Austin, which prides itself on its pedestrian amenities, ranked 19th.  Even more interesting was that San Antonio’s percentage of commuters who walk was 2.4%, compared to Austin’s 2.1% (those figures are from the 2000 Census.)

Of course, there’s definitely room for improvement.  San Antonians know that there are lots of “sidewalks to nowhere”, broken and obstructed walkways, and many streets with no sidewalks at all.  Fortunately, local transportation planners got the message a while ago and new projects now have pedestrian and bicycle facilities included, and retrofitting and repairing older facilities is an ongoing endeavor.

The top four most dangerous places to be a pedestrian were all in Florida: Orlando, Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville were one through four respectively.  The safest places?  Minneapolis, Boston, and New York.

You can read the full report here.