Comment 95083

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted November 22, 2013 at 13:35:09

A very important point is that it is not a utopian goal to drastically reduce, or even eliminate, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities.

Paris, with an urban core population of 2.2 million (whose effective population grows enormously during the day as it is the regional work and entertainment centre for 10 million people) had precisely zero cyclist deaths in 2011! And Paris has 23,000 rental bicycles available with a subscription base of 224,000 users. The absolute number of motorist deaths is actually lower than in Hamilton, despite (or because of) the dense traffic.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/...

As has been pointed out before, increasing the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists doesn't just cut the relative risk for each pedestrian or cyclist, it reduces the absolute numbers of injuries and deaths, which is counter-intuitive.

And, as an added benefit, slower, pedestrian- and cycle-friendly streets also drastically reduces deaths and injuries for motorists.

It is difficult to get the number of deaths to zero in all years (although this is the explicit goal in Sweden), but it is possible to lower the risk to close to zero, far lower than in Hamilton today. Safety is no accident, to use a workplace safety slogan.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2013-11-22 13:36:11

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