Smart Growth America ranked Atlanta as the 29th deadliest region for pedestrians out of the 101 largest metro areas in the country in a newly released report called “Dangerous by Design.”
On May 29, the organization broke down the biggest findings from the annual report in a virtual briefing. Using five years of data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Bloomberg CityLab the report found there’s been a rise in pedestrian deaths nationwide.
Cars may be getting safer, but transport for people outside vehicles is not. Fast-growing metros in the South and the Sunbelt, like Atlanta, are still ranked the most deadly. The report said pedestrian deaths are either keeping pace with population growth or surpassing it.
The 2023 report showed the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta area sees 2.71 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people per year, trending 0.55 deaths upward over time. In total, 825 pedestrians were killed from 2018-2022 alone.
Comparatively, the deadliest region, Memphis, Tenn., sees 5.14 annual pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people, and the least deadly region, Provo, Utah, sees 0.71 deaths.
“If 20 people a day fell out of the sky, we would shut down the aviation industry,” Smart Growth America President and CEO Calvin Glandley said.
Instead, the CEO said America’s car culture “treats it like the cost of doing business.”
While Atlanta didn’t crack the top 20, its ranking on the list still shows a lack of pedestrian safety in and around the city. District 2 Atlanta City Council member Amir Farokhi, a longtime advocate for pedestrian safety improvements, said the city has gotten better but has “a lot of room to improve.”
“To me, it’s important because people want to be in places, in cities where they’re comfortable when they walk out of a building,” Farokhi said.
The council member said the city could control pedestrian comfort with infrastructure design and maintenance, specifically as Atlanta’s population continues to grow and residents “demand” to live in places that are walkable both for exercise and transport.
“It’s even more critical to provide walkability as a mode of transport options for folks or a mobility option for folks,” Farokhi siad.
While many people in urban centers across the south are what Farokhi calls “multimodal mobility users,” the region has historically been built around cars.
Smart Growth America CEO Glandley said the culture built roads designed to get people through neighborhoods, but that “all leads to many more streets that are dangerous by design.” He also pointed to structural racism embedded in the decision to put the roads in certain locations. In Atlanta, the downtown connector seven-mile stretch that merges I-75 and I-85 cuts through the center of the city – right through the once prosperous Black commercial district, Sweet Auburn.
The “Dangerous by Design” report also found that walking can be more dangerous across racial groups. Native American and Black American populations combined accounted for nearly 22 percent of all pedestrian deaths in metro areas despite only making up about 13 percent of the population. Rates of death increase as area income decreases, too.
Smart Growth America pushes for solutions that take into account vulnerable groups and people with disproportionate risk. In the south, Glandley said progress is dependent on undoing cultural choices and structural challenges from the road placement. Atlanta has seen some shifts through local group Central Atlanta Progress and its proposed “The Stitch” that would cap the connector with walkable green space.
Farokhi said Atlanta has made strides in other areas, too.
“I think there’s pockets of excellence,” Farokhi said. “You see, the introduction of pedestrian scrambles and intersections that are heavily pedestrianized has been a success; we could use more of those in the right places.”
The councilmember has pushed for better sidewalk maintenance and “leading pedestrian intervals” that give pedestrians a head start at an intersection before cars are allowed to drive.
Smart Growth America Vice President of Transportation and Thriving Communities Beth Osborne said road design has a huge impact on how people drive. Things like wide roads, far away buildings and a lack of foliage are “more influential than the posted speed limit.”
Rather than just slap lower speed limits on existing roads, Osborne encouraged safer road options, like built out intersection corners for slower turns. Farokhi said he wants to see narrower intersections, but he also hopes to see more pedestrian-only streets in the urban center – things that reflect Atlanta’s current state.
“It’s not the 1970s, where you may have just driven to Atlanta from the suburbs for work, and you’re hightailing it to the highway to get back,” Farokhi said.
