Walking in L.A. – sidewalks are increasingly unsafe for pedestrians
Through April 12 of this year, 39 pedestrians in the city of Los Angeles were killed in traffic collisions, according to LAPD Traffic Division Compstat data. During the same period a decade earlier, there were 26 deaths.
In the intervening years, Los Angeles launched a program called Vision Zero, spearheaded by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti. Its goal: Eliminate all traffic deaths in the city by 2025.
For pedestrians walking in a famously unwalkable city, the opposite has happened. Last year, 169 pedestrians were killed in vehicle collisions (accounting for more than half of the 302 total traffic-related deaths). The previous year was worse: 185 pedestrian deaths, the highest annual count in over a decade.
Vision zero
The increasingly lethal streets and sidewalks in Los Angeles are evidence of the catastrophic failure of the Vision Zero initiative. Earlier this month, the city released a 125-page report that essentially nailed the coffin shut on the program.
Among the problems: Only half of the listed “actions” for the Vision Zero program were ever completed. The plan lacked a basic system of accountability among city departments. There was poor coordination and diminishing participation from the LAPD’s traffic division.
Numerous cities have implemented Vision Zero programs since the first one was developed in 1997 in Sweden. Many cities in Europe, including London, reported success in lowering fatalities. In the U.S., San Francisco reduced its fatality rate from 4.52 to 3.58 per 100,000 people, according to the report.
Not so in Los Angeles. Overall traffic fatalities grew from 186 in 2015 to 345 in 2023, followed by 302 last year.
Part of the reason behind the rise in traffic fatalities lies in cars that are bigger and heavier, and therefore more lethal. Then there are cell phones, which can distract drivers, as well as pedestrians looking down at a screen instead of the crosswalk.
Journalist Alissa Walker notes in her newsletter, Torched, that another factor is the hangover from years of deferred maintenance for street improvements.
Though pedestrian deaths are way up (last year’s total represented a 92% increase from a decade earlier), the number of serious pedestrian collisions is up only slightly.
Last year’s total of 1,677 serious vehicle-pedestrian collisions is just a smidge higher than the 1,611 in 2021. (The city changed its record keeping in 2021 to record only serious traffic collisions.) But the percentage of those collisions that were fatal rose by 23% in that time.
How we did it: Crosstown examined a decade of traffic collision data from the Los Angeles Police Department to tally the number of overall and pedestrian fatalities.
Have questions about our data? Write to us at askus@xtown.la
