Is walking in Macon-Bibb more dangerous than walking elsewhere?
Macon-Bibb County is one of the most deadly places to walk in Georgia. That much is certain. Though after guiding one of my journalism classes at Mercer University through a semester-long investigation into pedestrian fatalities, I’m convinced that few other things about this story are as clear cut as they may seem.
Let’s start with the statistics. Comprehensive statewide data from 2008-2012 show that Macon-Bibb suffered an annual average of 3.86 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people over that period. Only Burke County, south of Augusta-Richmond County, had a higher rate.
However, we’re talking about very small real numbers, which means the statistics can be deceptive. Thirty walkers died in Macon-Bibb over that five-year study period, nine in Burke. With a population of only about 23,000 in Burke County, one or two isolated accidents can significantly alter the rates.
Statewide data are not available for more recent years, so it’s impossible to know where Macon-Bibb ranks now. But the situation has shown no signs of improving, with 10 pedestrian fatalities in 2013 (a particularly bad year), eight in 2014 and four so far this year.
I don’t think the statistics show us if Burke is really more dangerous than Macon-Bibb, nor do they show us if Macon-Bibb is really more dangerous than Augusta-Richmond, Clayton County or Baldwin County, the next runners-up in these unenviable rankings.
I also don’t think the specific rankings matter all that much. The broader picture is that Macon-Bibb has a major problem relative to its neighbors, and that should be enough to spur action.
Over the course of our semester looking into this problem, my students tried to answer two questions: Why are so many people struck and killed by vehicles while walking in Macon-Bibb, and what — if anything — can be done about it?
Stories in the Sunday Telegraph focus on the first question. As Jane Hammond reports, “Macon-Bibb has a lot of the two things that, nationwide, are most strongly correlated with pedestrian deaths: vehicle-centric infrastructure and poverty.”
As walkability increasingly becomes a selling point that drives up the cost of housing, the kind of people who have no choice but to walk also have little choice but to live in the neighborhoods least suited to walking. Add to that situation the well-documented link between poverty and addiction, and these tragedies become all but inevitable.
Lia Sewell, looking closely at accidents from 2013-14, reports that “very often, the behavior of the pedestrian is an immediate cause of the accident.” Of the 11 cases from those two years that investigators have closed, seven of the victims were found to have been intoxicated at the time.
The stories in Monday’s edition will focus on the second question: What can be done to make Macon-Bibb streets safer places to walk? In searching for answers, I encouraged students to look beyond what I called “first order causes” — the immediate actions that lead to accidents.
Instead, I encouraged them to explore second order causes: Why might someone try to cross a busy street somewhere other than a crosswalk? Why might someone be walking while intoxicated near fast-moving roads? Why might drivers routinely exceed the speed limit in areas with high foot traffic?
Students visited the scenes of all the fatal accidents from 2013-14 on foot and inspected the conditions. They told me that, at most of the scenes, they did not feel very safe. Most accidents happened along wide multilane roads with no sidewalks. Most happened in neighborhoods where people have to walk such roads.
Almost all happened one, two or three lengths of a football field from the nearest crosswalk, some much further. How far would you go out of your way to cross at a designated crossing?
I encouraged my students to look at these second order causes because I believe that only by examining the conditions that lead to behavior can the consequences of that behavior be avoided. I encourage you to do the same before rushing to judgment about who is to blame for this persistent problem.
People are going to make errors in judgment. I think we would all like to live in a world where people are less likely to pay for those errors with their lives.
As public health hazards go, pedestrian fatalities are a rare occurrence, even in Macon-Bibb. But I would argue that they are only the most dramatic symptom of a web of plagues on our community ranging from alcoholism to sprawl. Some of those maladies may be easier to treat than others.
As you’ll read Monday, successes in other cities have proven that relatively simple and inexpensive infrastructure strategies can dramatically reduce pedestrian fatalities. But many require communities to reassess a decades-old mindset that prioritizes allowing cars to go as fast as possible above all else.
Adam Ragusea is a journalist in residence and visiting assistant professor at Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.
This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Is walking in Macon-Bibb more dangerous than walking elsewhere? ."