Sidewalks/Walkability in Massachusetts

[themissinglink]

Fatal pedestrian crashes up sharply in Mass. last year, AAA says - The Boston Globe

The number of pedestrian deaths in the United States declined slightly overall from 2023, the association said.

www.bostonglobe.com

In a statement, AAA said 7,148 pedestrians were killed in crashes last year in the United States, down 4.3 percent from 2023.
But in Massachusetts, 78 pedestrians died in crashes in 2024, up 16 percent from a year earlier, AAA said. The association puts out the numbers annually.
“Walking should be a safe and easy way to get around town, but on average, a pedestrian is killed every 72 minutes and injured every 8 minutes across the country,” Mark Schieldrop, a spokesperson for AAA Northeast, said in a statement.
“To ensure pedestrians get to their destinations safely, drivers should ditch the distractions, slow down near crosswalks, and never get behind the wheel impaired,” it continued.

 

[dshoost88]

Fatal pedestrian crashes up sharply in Mass. last year, AAA says - The Boston Globe

The number of pedestrian deaths in the United States declined slightly overall from 2023, the association said.

www.bostonglobe.com

Vision Zero is the goal, obviously, and it's refreshing to hear that pedestrian fatalities fell nationally year-over-year. What I'm curious to know, though, is what the location quotient of pedestrian mode share is in MA relative to other states/nationally, and how the number of deaths stacks up relative to mode shifts to walking. 16% year over year is a big raw number jump, but if that aligns with a 16% increase in people walking as their primary travel mode, then it's a wash. Maybe I'll study this further.

 

[bigeman312]

Vision Zero is the goal, obviously, and it's refreshing to hear that pedestrian fatalities fell nationally year-over-year. What I'm curious to know, though, is what the location quotient of pedestrian mode share is in MA relative to other states/nationally, and how the number of deaths stacks up relative to mode shifts to walking. 16% year over year is a big raw number jump, but if that aligns with a 16% increase in people walking as their primary travel mode, then it's a wash. Maybe I'll study this further.

I'd love to hear what you find! Food for thought for your study: is mode share the relevant statistic or is pedestrian miles traveled (which is obviously very hard to come by) the relevant statistic?

 

[themissinglink]

Is Boston’s use of concurrent signals putting pedestrians at risk?

A third of Boston intersections let pedestrians in crosswalks cross at the same time as traffic.

www.wgbh.org

Most Boston intersections are designed so that pedestrians are the only group that can legally be in the crosswalk. But the city also uses what’s known as “concurrent signaling” at a third of intersections, meaning that vehicle traffic runs parallel to pedestrians — and cars can legally turn into the crosswalk while people are crossing and have a walk signal.
[…]
City Councilor Ed Flynn, concerned about the danger to pedestrians, has been pushing the city to stop using concurrent signals over the last two years. Despite support from the other city councilors, he says, the city’s traffic department hasn’t budged. Flynn cited an incident in April when a driver hit a group of preschoolers in the South End in a crosswalk, when the driver had a green light.

 

[HBH]

Is Boston’s use of concurrent signals putting pedestrians at risk?

A third of Boston intersections let pedestrians in crosswalks cross at the same time as traffic.

www.wgbh.org

Ed Flynn continuing his incessant misunderstanding of how the world works. You can't just walk in and flip a magic switch and make signals exclusive, and even if you could it makes delay significantly worse for everyone, including for pedestrians. There's a time and a place for it.

If we're serious about reducing conflicts we need to city wide install a lot of dedicated turn lanes and turn signals. That's the only way you're going to get separated pedestrians phases at most Boston intersections.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Ed Flynn continuing his incessant misunderstanding of how the world works. You can't just walk in and flip a magic switch and make signals exclusive, and even if you could it makes delay significantly worse for everyone, including for pedestrians. There's a time and a place for it.

If we're serious about reducing conflicts we need to city wide install a lot of dedicated turn lanes and turn signals. That's the only way you're going to get separated pedestrians phases at most Boston intersections.

Not really. All that has to be done is add a separate cycle for pedestrian traffic, in which all vehicular traffic is stopped, and all crosswalks are open for unimpeded movement. No added turn lanes and signals are needed.

 

[HBH]

Not really. All that has to be done is add a separate cycle for pedestrian traffic, in which all vehicular traffic is stopped, and all crosswalks are open for unimpeded movement. No added turn lanes and signals are needed.

That makes delays significantly worse for everyone, including pedestrians (and buses of course). If you just do that you end up with pedestrian delays exceeding 120 seconds at many Boston intersections. There are extremely few pedestrians willing to wait 2 minutes to cross the street, most will just go on the green instead and you're back to square one.

For context the HCM would define a pedestrian delay of 60 seconds as failing, 120 is laughably bad.

 

[RandomWalk]

Repeal the default right on red. It doesn’t directly address the concurrent signal problem, but it does reduce the number variables in the mechanics of how intersections operate.

 

[KCasiglio]

Leading pedestrian intervals, curb bump outs, refuge islands (when there's 4+ lanes), raised crosswalks/intersections...there's plenty of treatments that can be done that are proven effective without needing to go through the herculean effort of retiming half the city's signals (since it would require more than just the third Ed describes when you factor in nearby synchronized signals)

 

[real_EthanHunt]

Does Ed Flynn or GBH know that almost every walkable city in the world uses concurrent pedestrian phasing?
The problem isnt concurrent, the problem is the mix of using concurrent and exclusive which leads to drivers not paying attention and thinking peds shouldnt be crossing.
Exclusive phasing means pedestrians get the least amount of time for crossing allowed each cycle.
Exclusive phasing is what has created the jaywalking (and non yielding) culture of New England because people dont want to wait for their 20-25 second phase out of a 100 to 120 second cycle.

you cant engineer your way out peoples ignorance. drivers not yielding. pedestrian jaywalking. people are the greatest obstacle for vision zero.

 

[astroTrain27]

While this would by no means be an easy change to make at any level, it’s worth noting that a major reason why adding dedicated pedestrian phases is so devastating in terms of added delay is the unnecessarily conservative way in which traffic light phases are calculated in the US.

In other parts of the world, each crossing point between each movement within an intersection is treated as a discrete conflict zone, and the signal timing takes into account the time delays for a vehicle to both enter and exit each of those conflict zones.

In the US, for conflicting movements, the signal timing equation treats the entire intersection as one big conflict zone, and only takes into account exit time (the delay between a red light and a clear conflict zone), but not entry time (the delay between a green light and a non-clear conflict zone). Essentially, this assumes that as soon as the light turns green, a car could be at any point along its path through the intersection, traveling at any speed - and no conflicting movements are allowed until the last car has had time to clear the entire intersection (+margin). The difference is subtle, but for large enough intersections, the time difference between the two approaches becomes substantial.

Here’s an interesting video that explains it in more detail

Edit: I had linked the wrong video

 

[TheRatmeister]

Does Ed Flynn or GBH know that almost every walkable city in the world uses concurrent pedestrian phasing?

If you really want to terrify him, does he know that some cities use concurrent bicycle phasing? Now that's something.

 

[guitarguynboston]

My city has some intersections with dedicated pedestrian crossing. I ignore them cause sometimes vehicles will get 2 times for each direction to cross if the ped button isn't pressed at the right time. Some are so long between turning lights and straight crossings that you mind as well set up camp.

 

[sneijder]

While this would by no means be an easy change to make at any level, it’s worth noting that a major reason why adding dedicated pedestrian phases is so devastating in terms of added delay is the unnecessarily conservative way in which traffic light phases are calculated in the US.

In other parts of the world, each crossing point between each movement within an intersection is treated as a discrete conflict zone, and the signal timing takes into account the time delays for a vehicle to both enter and exit each of those conflict zones.

In the US, for conflicting movements, the signal timing equation treats the entire intersection as one big conflict zone, and only takes into account exit time (the delay between a red light and a clear conflict zone), but not entry time (the delay between a green light and a non-clear conflict zone). Essentially, this assumes that as soon as the light turns green, a car could be at any point along its path through the intersection, traveling at any speed - and no conflicting movements are allowed until the last car has had time to clear the entire intersection (+margin). The difference is subtle, but for large enough intersections, the time difference between the two approaches becomes substantial.

Here’s an interesting video that explains it in more detail

Edit: I had linked the wrong video

This is an awesome idea for less car-centric places, but assumes drivers who are going on yellow actually enter the intersection before the light turns red. Anyone who's driven around here knows that in practice, drivers will routinely enter the intersection up to 1 full second after the red. So much so that as someone waiting getting a fresh green, you often have to wait for red-runners to exit the intersection before you can go. So this "added delay" from this concept has already been nullified by people just treating the first 1 sec of a red cycle as a "yellow".

 

[real_EthanHunt]

The city has actually been finding a decent compromise at intersections with turning lanes. They are running concurrent peds but holding the turns so they are basically protected concurrent phasing.
The intersection in City Sq is a good example.
Before bridge construction, the intersection was straight concurrent. During construction when all peds had to cross N Washington/Rutherford they implemented exclusive because having that many peds cross basically 6 lanes of traffic was not ideal.
Now it is set up as concurrent protected.

NB coming over the bridge gets a green for through, right turns are held and peds cross Chelsea St concurrent. Then ped signal ends and the rights are released while through keeps going. The right stays on as an overlap as Chelsea St gets the green. SB lefts are then given the green along with peds crossing Rutherford.
It's a decent compromise. Only issue is NB right are held a long time due to the flashing don't walk needing to be so long. Conversely, SB left gets more time than it needs because of the FDW time that is needed to cross Rutherford. It's better than exclusive phasing though.

 

[astroTrain27]

This is an awesome idea for less car-centric places, but assumes drivers who are going on yellow actually enter the intersection before the light turns red. Anyone who's driven around here knows that in practice, drivers will routinely enter the intersection up to 1 full second after the red. So much so that as someone waiting getting a fresh green, you often have to wait for red-runners to exit the intersection before you can go. So this "added delay" from this concept has already been nullified by people just treating the first 1 sec of a red cycle as a "yellow".

Sure, but I see this as a bit of a chicken and an egg situation. People squeeze yellows and run reds here because, either through trial and error, or though some understanding of the intersection phasing, they know they can get away with it. Drivers know that red lights are sometimes lying to them just as pedestrians know that “don’t walk” is sometimes bs - and the extra long phases give everyone extra incentive to take risks to avoid waiting.

The transition would be messy and would require a huge “red means red now” awareness campaign, but I don’t think it would be impossible. The laws are already on the books, and the consequences would make themselves obvious pretty quickly (hopefully just through near misses and honking).

The end result would be a system that is not only more efficient, but safer: as a safety system that is so conservative that it is routinely ignored is not much of a safety system at all.