Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow
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visible. In 2017, Honolulu criminalized texting while walking across
the street despite having no evidence that it was a serious safety is-
sue. Other American cities, such as Salt Lake City, implore pedes-
trians to carry high-visibility ags when crossing the street.
In cities as dierent as Chicago and Los Angeles, there is frequent
talk o licensing bike riders or requiring them to wear bike helmets.
Although bike helmets are a reasonable precaution, legally requiring
them for all riders only reduces the number o cyclists on the street
and thus the tra¾c-calming eect that they bring. In many Austra-
lian cities, for example, helmet laws have not lowered tra¾c deaths;
instead, they have merely hobbled public bike-share systems, whose
riders don’t want to carry a helmet wherever they go. Helmets aren’t
what make biking safer. There are no helmet requirements in Den-
mark, the Netherlands, or Norway—countries where bikes are widely
used for transportation and that nonetheless report fewer bike deaths
per mile ridden than the United States.
As well meaning as most tra¾c-safety laws tend to be, they aren’t
enough. Many societies have already had a century o practice train-
ing better drivers and writing better safety laws. Despite the laws on
the books, vast numbers o crashes involve excessive speed, a failure to
yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, or drinking and drug use. In 2017,
29 percent o tra¾c deaths on American roads involved alcohol. An
estimated ten percent o crashes involved distracted drivers, many o
whom were using cell phones. Instead o trying to legislate safety, a
more eective approach is to design it.PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
The process can and should begin in cities. Although a 2018 study o 26
countries by the International Transport Forum found that most tra¾c
deaths occur in rural areas, where speeding is common and where there
is no space on the road for pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists, the pat-
tern is shifting as urbanization continues across the world. (By 2050, city
dwellers are expected to compose 68 percent o the global population.)
In city after city, a new generation o urban planners is ¥nding new ways
to reduce tra¾c deaths by retro¥tting roads, sometimes dramatically.
Although the average transportation agency con¥nes itsel to repair-
ing potholes, repaving roads, maintaining signs, and so on, there is
much more that municipal governments can do. From 2007 to 2013,
both o us worked in the New York City Department o Transportation