Families for Safe Streets: Giving a Face to the Traffic Violence Crisis

On this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck discusses safe streets advocacy with Amy Cohen, the co-founder and president of Families for Safe Streets.

Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsNovember 20, 2024podcast, safe and productive streets, car crash, advocacy, safety

There Is No Need To Wait for a Traffic Safety Moonshot

Americans are suckers for the idea of a moonshot, of taking a big, challenging risk and earning a huge payoff. The problem is, these moonshots usually fail, especially when they're trying to fix complex, chronic problems like traffic safety. There's a better way.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnSeptember 30, 2024safe and productive streets, technology, incrementalism, Crash Analysis Studio, safety

The City as a Classroom

Children need the option to participate in the outside world, not just to fear it. Here's how Tiffany Owens Reed is carving out space for her son.

Owens, Top StoryTiffany Owens ReedSeptember 10, 2024children, family, safety, people centered places, community

Mixed Messages: Is Car Design Making Streets Less Safe?

Designing streets to encourage safe behavior is a powerful tool for creating lasting prosperity. But when cars are designed to encourage unsafe behavior, it threatens to undo that progress.

Owens, Top StoryTiffany Owens ReedJuly 23, 2024safe and productive streets, Street Design, cars, safety, speeding

The Blame Game: Why Elmer the Safety Elephant Can’t Protect Kids

Safety practices and education are vital for children, but when that education is focused solely on personal responsibility and is enforced through shame, it can do more harm than good. Personal responsibility can only go so far: For streets to truly be safe, changes to the transportation system itself are needed.

Do Your City’s Rules Empower the Community or the Notorious Vocal Minority?

Local government is supposed to be the highest form of collaboration, but it doesn’t always feel that way. Too often, city rules favor opponents of change, meaning one dissenting voice can doom a project. However, Jersey City demonstrates how cities can increase collaboration by adopting an iterative approach to city planning.

Top StoryAsia MieleszkoJuly 1, 2024safe and productive streets, safety, advocacy, NIMBY, local government

Playing the Blame Game Won’t Make Our Roads Safer

The driver was operating their vehicle entirely lawfully at this intersection in Grand Junction, CO—yet a person was nearly killed and the driver’s car was totaled. Who do we blame? (And what’s the point of assigning blame?)

Top StoryAsia MieleszkoMarch 21, 2024safe and productive streets, Crash Analysis Studio, car crash, safety, bicycling

Too Much Trust in Technology Is Dangerous for Drivers (and Everyone Around Them)

For the first time, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted tests on 14 widely available versions of self-driving technology. Here’s what they found.

News, Top StoryBen AbramsonMarch 15, 2024safe and productive streets, self driving cars, safety, car dependency, cars

A Walk in Hoboken: What Makes It Different?

Hoboken, NJ, has gained fame online for its safe streets. But does this urbanist’s paradise live up to the hype, in person? We sent Strong Towns Staff Writer Asia Mieleszko to do some on-the-ground investigating to find out.

Shima Hamidi: Narrow Lanes Save Lives

We talk with Dr. Shima Hamidi of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose research cuts into the core assumptions of the civil engineering profession in regard to traffic design.

Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsFebruary 5, 2024podcast, safe and productive streets, narrow streets, safety, car crash

You Don't Need a License to Walk

We need to rethink how we talk about car accidents involving pedestrians. Pedestrians are seen as obstacles for drivers who are often driving too fast and are too distracted along roads that are all too wide.

Okay, You Know How To Fix a Deadly Stroad. Now Do It 1,000 Times.

One reason communities hesitate to acknowledge their dangerous stroads is because the problem is so big, addressing it would paralyze our existing planning bureaucracies. But there is still a way forward.

Herriges, Top StoryDaniel HerrigesJanuary 10, 2024safe and productive streets, Crash Analysis Studio, safety, stroad, car crash

Just Another, and Another, and Another Pedestrian Killed on State Street

How do we explain a situation where people are routinely killed—in the same location—and nothing is done?

The Hesitancy of Western Massachusetts to Address Traffic Deaths Is a Warning to All

Cities in Massachusetts are among the most walkable in the U.S., so why is progress for safer streets there so maddeningly slow?

Marohn, Trending, Top StoryCharles MarohnNovember 6, 2023safe and productive streets, california, massachusetts, safety, Street Design

Trick-or-Treat Is Worth Saving

The rise of trunk-or-treat is just another outcome of our streets becoming more dangerous, but it’s important we come together and save the tradition of trick-or-treating.

Ryan AllenOctober 30, 2023halloween, safe and productive streets, safety, Street Design, children

This City Is Not Waiting for a Crash To Happen Before Creating a Safer Street

When residents of Medicine Hat, AB, flagged a school crosswalk as dangerous, the city responded quickly with bollards and paint—showing that cities can (and should) implement street design changes before tragedy occurs.

They Were Sold a Boulevard. What They Got Was a Highway.

Residents of the Farmers Market District in Dallas, TX, thought they were buying into a “walkable” neighborhood…except its 9-lane road is too dangerous to walk by. And the city’s attempts at making it safer aren’t helping.