I'm just going to put it out there: I commute by bike in the city of Los Angeles. Every day, and about 8 miles in either direction. When I reveal this fact to Angelenos, the most common reaction is despair. Some of them despair for me: for my (unsure) physical health on the streets, for my (unsure) mental health as a person who would want to be closer to the pavement. And some despair for themselves, for that inevitable moment when they'll have to decide between running me over and...well, getting to the next red light a few seconds later. This tension is frequently borne out on the road: though I've commuted by bike across the whole hipster circuit--New Orleans, San Francisco, Portland, Oakland, and Beijing--I've never had so many close calls, nor so many *intentional* close calls, as in LA. But I still love biking in LA and I'm going to keep doing it. It's great for my physical and psychological health, and though I cross the city on my commute, I know down to within a minute or two how long it'll take, regardless of the time of day and regardless of traffic. Moreover, it's better for the environment and better for our air quality (we've had >60 straight days of bad air), and it's a new way to see the city. Put an Angeleno on a bike and they'll see places they'd never heard of. Still, given the safety concerns with riding, I've started to dig into some data on how LA compares to other metro areas when it comes to road safety. LA is a Vision Zero city, meaning that it aims to end traffic fatalities by 2025. That's a tall order: in 2016, ~130 pedestrians were killed by cars. And so far in 2019, 17 cyclists in the LA area have lost their lives in traffic. So is LA going to realize this vision, or is the vision a mirage? This will be the first of several posts on the matter. To begin, let's look at some data on the state of affairs on LA streets. [[My main data sources are LA's Vision Zero manuals and progress reports and the US Department of Transportation Traffic Safety Facts compilations, published each year. Here's 2016. Analysis is all in python, using matplotlib, numpy, and pandas.]] Am I Going to Die Here? A good starting point would just be to ask: what are the chances I'm going to die in my city in a traffic accident? As you can see below, in 2016, roughly 7 people of every 100,000 in Los Angeles died in traffic. Is the collision death rate in LA acceptable? That depends on whom you ask. If you're asking the Vision Zero city of LA, then the answer should be a clear no. If you're asking drivers, who likely want to balance convenience and safety, then this may be an acceptable rate, albeit one they don't want to think about. If you're asking me, as a 'vulnerable' road user, the rate is way too high. Getting to work, to the gym, to the theater, etc., shouldn't mean someone gets killed. I'd like to see LA achieving a more 'progressive' number. And I would guess that the majority of Angelenos would too. It is telling that the LA number is closer to what is observed in Houston and Nashville than what is achieved in Seattle. Are Things Getting Better? Another question you might ask is: are things getting better? After all, since the city signed on to Vision Zero back in 2015, new crosswalks and bike lanes have been going in, and supposedly enforcement has been stepped up. But it seems that not enough is being done. Below, I'm comparing data from 2012 and 2016 (the most recent available report). Most of the cities on the plot, including LA, actually saw significant increases in their collision death rates over this span. To put this into perspective, it helps to actually see the raw numbers. In 2012, LA saw 242 traffic deaths, 99 of which were pedestrians. In 2016, there were 315 traffic deaths, of which 135 were pedestrians. Note that (according to LA's Vision Zero progress reports) the number of people killed while walking in LA each year is often higher than the number killed in cars. That is a very, very dark statistic. It's also an indication that increases in vehicle safety are failing to translate to safe streets. That's where policy comes in (or is supposed to). What's happening? Geography is a Major Factor One thing that is very clear from these data is that your likelihood of dying by car very much depends on where you're driving it. The exact mechanisms behind that observation are likely a good object of study for anyone trying to build safer cities. Towards understanding these mechanisms, I have a couple more plots below. In the first, I've simply plotted the 2016 Collision Death Rate against the per capita income for each of the test cities. As is apparent, if you live in a rich city, you're much less likely to die by car. This is not necessarily causal. But there is good reason to suspect that economic factors have much to do with whether or not you will die by car: more expensive cars on better-cared-for roads are, all things equal, less likely to get you killed. Though, as I'll describe later, economic factors also influence pedestrian rates, which skew the total death rates. [[As a side point, as a scientist I'll note that there's plenty to learn from outliers. It's worth taking a closer look at the cities that significantly depart from the trend line below. Cities above the line, like Memphis and Jacksonville, are more dangerous than expected. This could be due to a number of factors, including sprawl, traffic laws, and wealth distribution. There are also some cities below the line, like LA and New York. Are they below the line because they're working hard to make transportation safe, or because unrelated urban planning has decreased traffic speeds? It would be good to actually test this using some historical data.]] Voting Could Save Your Life
As a final note, I've compared the Collision death rate in major American cities to the percentage of votes cast in those cities for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Note that this is not an endorsement of Clinton. There are many factors built in here, including economic ones, as discussed above, and it would be blatantly unscientific to draw a political conclusion when I've just argued for an economic one. I've included the data to make a broader point: good transportation is a key part of the progressive agenda. Good transportation is also a nexus between climate and social policies. And it just might save your life, or the lives of your loved ones. So vote with that in mind. And just as importantly, *live* with that in mind. If you don't want to walk or get on a bike, then at least give us some space. Comments are closed.
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