Every Street Designed for Safety
While growing up in the suburbs of Florida I was surrounded by cars and highways. Before I could afford my own vehicle, I used my trusty bicycle to get to work, the shopping mall, and friends’ houses. Bike lanes – even the basic painted ones – were unknown. I rode on sidewalks when available, but often had to carefully squeeze along the curb of busy roads – my grip tight from anxiety as cars whipped by at 60 miles per hour. It’s no surprise that fatal car collisions were a regular part of the evening news.
Safety of our streets is especially important around our schools, hospitals, and recreation centers. Well-designed streets protect drivers and their passengers just as much as cyclists, pedestrians, and wheelchair users. Creating a complete network of frequent bus routes, low–stress bike lanes, and a functional Metro is needed for a truly safe community.
Arlington is clearly better than where I grew up, but there are too many glaring failures to ignore. We have numerous dangerous intersections where injuries and fatalities regularly occur. Our build-out of protected bike paths is far behind DC’s progress, our buses are consistently unreliable, and of course Metro is still a “dumpster fire”. Our leadership needs to do better.
“To finally eliminate injuries and fatalities we must design every street and transit system so taking the bus, metro, biking, and walking are the obvious safer options for everyone – especially our children, elderly, and people with disabilities.”
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