'Todd Litman' litman@vtpi.org [CARFREE_CITIES]
2016-09-14 15:06:10 UTC
Press Release: The Hidden Traffic Safety Solution: Public Transportation
14 September 2016
"The Hidden Traffic Safety Solution: Public Transportation"
(http://www.apta.com/mediacenter/pressreleases/2016/Pages/Hidden-Traffic-Saf
ety-Solution.aspx ), a new study by Todd Litman, published by the American
Public Transportation Association, shows how high quality public transit
services and more transit-oriented development can increase safety for users
and communities.
Public transportation is overall a very safe mode of travel. Transit
passengers have about one-tenth the traffic casualty (death and injury) rate
as automobile passengers, and transit-oriented communities have about
one-fifth the per capita traffic casualty rate as automobile-oriented
communities. This occurs because high-quality public transit helps create
more compact and multi-modal communities where residents drive less, traffic
speeds are lower, and higher-risk drivers have viable alternative to
automobile travel. These benefits are large, but often overlooked in
conventional planning. More comprehensive safety impact analysis can justify
significantly more support for public transit improvements and
transit-oriented development.
Public transit investments and supportive policies increase traffic safety
in several ways, including reduced risks to travelers who shift from
automobile to transit, community-wide crash reductions due to less total
vehicle travel, and safer traffic speeds. Since most casualty crashes
involve multiple vehicles, even responsible drivers who always observe
traffic laws and seldom use public transit benefit from public
transportation improvements that help reduce higher-risk driving, and
therefore their risk of being the victim of other drivers' mistakes.
Public transit tends to support other traffic safety strategies. Efforts to
reduce higher risk driving, such as graduated licenses for teens, senior
driving testing, and impaired and distracted driving campaigns, become more
effective if implemented in conjunction with public transit service
improvements which provide a viable alternative to driving. For instance,
urban teens take five times as many public transit trips, drive half as
much, and have about half the per capita auto death rate as rural trends. As
a result, both youth and total traffic fatality rates decline with increased
public transit travel.
This study shows that vehicle death and injury rates tend to decline
significantly in a community as public transit ridership increases. Cities
that average more than 50 annual transit trips per capita have about half
the average traffic fatality rates as cities where residents average fewer
than 20 annual trips. Since Americans average about 1,350 annual trips on
all modes, this increase from less than 20 to more than 50 annual transit
trips represents a small increase in transit mode share, from about 1.5% up
to about 4%, equal to an average increase of just three transit trips per
month per person.
Conventional planning tends to overlook and undervalue these benefits.
Transportation economic evaluation, the benefit/cost analysis of policies
and projects, seldom considers the full safety gains provided by transit
service improvements and transit-oriented development, and traffic safety
programs seldom consider transit improvements as crash reduction strategies,
despite their large benefits. The report critiques current traffic safety
programs. Of eleven major programs reviewed, only two (the "Global Road
Safety Partnership" and the "Transportation Planner's Safety Desk
Reference") mention transit as possible traffic safety strategies, and even
they provide little information about those strategies, with minimal
guidance on how to predict the safety impacts of transit improvements and
Smart Growth policies, and how to evaluate their full benefits (including
co-benefits) in order to support such strategies. Conventional safety
programs assume that transit can only provide modest safety benefits,
reflecting little understanding of the ways that pro-transit policies can
leverage additional crash reductions.
This is an important and timely issue. A recent report by the U.S. Center
for Disease Control, "Vital Signs: Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention - United
States and 19 Comparison Countries In 2013"
(http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6526e1.htm ) indicates that,
despite huge investments in safer roads and vehicles, and traffic safety
programs, the United States has by far the highest traffic fatality rate of
among 20 peer countries: 10.3 death per 100,000 population in 2013, more
than twice the median of the other 19 industrialized countries. Reducing
this high traffic death rate will require new traffic safety strategies,
including public transit service improvements and more transit-oriented
development.
Cited in:
"America Has a Terrible Traffic Safety Record Because We Drive Too Much"
(http://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/09/08/america-has-a-terrible-traffic-safety
-record-because-we-drive-too-much ), StreetsBlog.
"Investing in Transit Is an Investment in Saving Lives"
(http://blog.tstc.org/2016/09/09/investing-transit-investment-saving-lives
), Mobilizing the Region.
"A New Traffic Safety Paradigm" (http://bit.ly/2ciSV8P ), Institute of
Transportation Engineers All Members Forum.
"High Quality Public Transportation Can Provide Huge Traffic Safety
Benefits"
(http://www.planetizen.com/node/88491/high-quality-public-transportation-can
-provide-huge-traffic-safety-benefits ), Planetizen.
14 September 2016
"The Hidden Traffic Safety Solution: Public Transportation"
(http://www.apta.com/mediacenter/pressreleases/2016/Pages/Hidden-Traffic-Saf
ety-Solution.aspx ), a new study by Todd Litman, published by the American
Public Transportation Association, shows how high quality public transit
services and more transit-oriented development can increase safety for users
and communities.
Public transportation is overall a very safe mode of travel. Transit
passengers have about one-tenth the traffic casualty (death and injury) rate
as automobile passengers, and transit-oriented communities have about
one-fifth the per capita traffic casualty rate as automobile-oriented
communities. This occurs because high-quality public transit helps create
more compact and multi-modal communities where residents drive less, traffic
speeds are lower, and higher-risk drivers have viable alternative to
automobile travel. These benefits are large, but often overlooked in
conventional planning. More comprehensive safety impact analysis can justify
significantly more support for public transit improvements and
transit-oriented development.
Public transit investments and supportive policies increase traffic safety
in several ways, including reduced risks to travelers who shift from
automobile to transit, community-wide crash reductions due to less total
vehicle travel, and safer traffic speeds. Since most casualty crashes
involve multiple vehicles, even responsible drivers who always observe
traffic laws and seldom use public transit benefit from public
transportation improvements that help reduce higher-risk driving, and
therefore their risk of being the victim of other drivers' mistakes.
Public transit tends to support other traffic safety strategies. Efforts to
reduce higher risk driving, such as graduated licenses for teens, senior
driving testing, and impaired and distracted driving campaigns, become more
effective if implemented in conjunction with public transit service
improvements which provide a viable alternative to driving. For instance,
urban teens take five times as many public transit trips, drive half as
much, and have about half the per capita auto death rate as rural trends. As
a result, both youth and total traffic fatality rates decline with increased
public transit travel.
This study shows that vehicle death and injury rates tend to decline
significantly in a community as public transit ridership increases. Cities
that average more than 50 annual transit trips per capita have about half
the average traffic fatality rates as cities where residents average fewer
than 20 annual trips. Since Americans average about 1,350 annual trips on
all modes, this increase from less than 20 to more than 50 annual transit
trips represents a small increase in transit mode share, from about 1.5% up
to about 4%, equal to an average increase of just three transit trips per
month per person.
Conventional planning tends to overlook and undervalue these benefits.
Transportation economic evaluation, the benefit/cost analysis of policies
and projects, seldom considers the full safety gains provided by transit
service improvements and transit-oriented development, and traffic safety
programs seldom consider transit improvements as crash reduction strategies,
despite their large benefits. The report critiques current traffic safety
programs. Of eleven major programs reviewed, only two (the "Global Road
Safety Partnership" and the "Transportation Planner's Safety Desk
Reference") mention transit as possible traffic safety strategies, and even
they provide little information about those strategies, with minimal
guidance on how to predict the safety impacts of transit improvements and
Smart Growth policies, and how to evaluate their full benefits (including
co-benefits) in order to support such strategies. Conventional safety
programs assume that transit can only provide modest safety benefits,
reflecting little understanding of the ways that pro-transit policies can
leverage additional crash reductions.
This is an important and timely issue. A recent report by the U.S. Center
for Disease Control, "Vital Signs: Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention - United
States and 19 Comparison Countries In 2013"
(http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6526e1.htm ) indicates that,
despite huge investments in safer roads and vehicles, and traffic safety
programs, the United States has by far the highest traffic fatality rate of
among 20 peer countries: 10.3 death per 100,000 population in 2013, more
than twice the median of the other 19 industrialized countries. Reducing
this high traffic death rate will require new traffic safety strategies,
including public transit service improvements and more transit-oriented
development.
Cited in:
"America Has a Terrible Traffic Safety Record Because We Drive Too Much"
(http://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/09/08/america-has-a-terrible-traffic-safety
-record-because-we-drive-too-much ), StreetsBlog.
"Investing in Transit Is an Investment in Saving Lives"
(http://blog.tstc.org/2016/09/09/investing-transit-investment-saving-lives
), Mobilizing the Region.
"A New Traffic Safety Paradigm" (http://bit.ly/2ciSV8P ), Institute of
Transportation Engineers All Members Forum.
"High Quality Public Transportation Can Provide Huge Traffic Safety
Benefits"
(http://www.planetizen.com/node/88491/high-quality-public-transportation-can
-provide-huge-traffic-safety-benefits ), Planetizen.