Transportation
Raleigh's Pedestrian Rebound
Recently ranked one of America's most dangerous places for walkers, the city has a new plan to do something about it.
Who says city rankings don't matter? In 2009, the think tank Transportation for America released a report called "Dangerous by Design" [PDF], ranking the least pedestrian-friendly metro areas in the country. Raleigh, North Carolina, placed sixth—as in sixth most dangerous. News stations reported the story with video of a father hustling his daughter across a major arterial that lacks a crosswalk.
"That was a bit of an eye opener," says Fleming El-Amin, a transportation planner with the city. "From that we said, maybe there's something we needed to do about this."