The following blog post is co-authored and published in partnership with the League of American Bicyclists, a national non-profit advocating to make cycling accessible and safe for all Americans, and the National Complete Streets Coalition, a non-profit, non-partisan alliance of public interest organizations and transportation professionals committed to the development and implementation of Complete Streets policies and practices and a program of Smart Growth America.
For decades, state departments of transportation have treated pedestrian and cyclists fatalities like weather events: something that increases simply as people drive more, putting these deaths outside of the control of DOTs. But with COVID-19 proving this to be false, it’s past time for state DOTs to implement performance measures to reduce the number of people killed while walking or biking. Here’s our comparison of state safety targets.