{"id":12269,"date":"2020-02-13T11:19:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T16:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12269"},"modified":"2020-02-13T11:19:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T16:19:33","slug":"how-is-moco-doing-on-pedestrian-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12269","title":{"rendered":"How is MoCo Doing on Pedestrian Safety?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedestrian safety is arguably THE hottest issue in MoCo government right now.\u00a0 With several recent high profile pedestrian deaths<\/a> and residents swarming a county council meeting on the subject<\/a>, alarmed elected officials are terming pedestrian crashes a \u201cpublic health crisis\u201d<\/a> and demanding action.\u00a0 The county has responded by hiring a full-time pedestrian safety coordinator<\/a> and is promising more to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pedestrian safety has been a challenge in Montgomery\nCounty for decades.  How well is the\ncounty doing on this issue?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let\u2019s look at MoCo\u2019s rate of pedestrian involved crashes in comparison to the rest of the state.\u00a0 The table below, sourced from data provided by the Maryland Department of Transportation<\/a>, compares the average annual number of pedestrian crashes by county to county populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Three of the top four counties on a per capita basis \u2013\nBaltimore City, Baltimore County and Prince George\u2019s County \u2013 are among the\nmost urbanized jurisdictions in the state. \nThe other county in the top four \u2013 Worcester \u2013 has an unusual amount of\npedestrian activity on the Ocean City boardwalk.  MoCo ranks 7th of 24 counties on crash rate\nbut its average annual crash rate per 1,000 residents (0.44) is below the state\naverage (0.54).  Admittedly, the state\naverage is skewed upwards by Baltimore City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s interesting that MoCo\u2019s pedestrian crash rate is similar to less urbanized jurisdictions like Wicomico, Dorchester and Washington Counties.\u00a0 Urbanized counties should have greater volumes of pedestrian activity because of a greater abundance of walkable districts.\u00a0 MoCo certainly has more of those than Wicomico, Dorchester and Washington Counties.\u00a0 That suggests that MoCo isn\u2019t a relatively bad performer on this measure given its substantial (and increasing) urbanization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing MoCo does is spend significant amounts of capital money on pedestrian projects.\u00a0 The table below compares capital budget spending on pedestrian and bikeway projects (the two are one category) to total capital spending excluding the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission in the last 16 Capital Improvements Program (CIP) budgets.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MoCo\u2019s spending on pedestrian and bikeway projects\nsteadily accelerated from $44 million in the FY7-12 CIP to $225 million in the\nFY19-24 CIP.  Major projects like the\nMetropolitan Branch Trail, the MD-355 BRAC crossing and the Capital Crescent\nTrail are partially responsible for these increases.  However, the FY21-26 executive recommended\nbudget is a step back.  The six-year\ntotal pedestrian and bikeway spending of $181 million is the lowest since the\nFY13-18 amended budget.  So is the\npercentage of the total capital budget accounted for by pedestrian and bikeway\nprojects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this gives rise to two questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.\u00a0 MoCo spends a lot of money on pedestrian projects, but is the county getting a good return?\u00a0 A 2007 county council press release<\/a> states that the county averaged 430 pedestrian collisions per year from 2003 through 2006.\u00a0 The Maryland Department of Transportation estimates that the county averaged 459 pedestrian crashes from 2014 through 2018.\u00a0 Between the two periods, the county\u2019s population rose by 13% while its pedestrian crashes rose by 7%.\u00a0 Is that a sufficiently positive result from the enormous sums the county has spent in recent years?\u00a0 Given the significant needs in this area and the limited resources in the capital budget, the county may wish to study the most cost-effective ways of promoting pedestrian safety and direct its funding accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.\u00a0 As noted above, the executive\u2019s new recommended capital budget decreases pedestrian and bikeway spending to its lowest level in seven years.\u00a0 One reason for that is that the overall level of capital spending is declining.\u00a0 (That\u2019s a subject for a future series.)\u00a0 With all areas of the capital budget under stress and the looming possibility that school construction delays will trigger residential moratoriums<\/a>, it\u2019s extremely difficult to add or even maintain funding for any program, not just pedestrian and bikeway projects.\u00a0 That said, county elected officials will look terrible if they declare pedestrian safety to be a \u201cpublic health crisis\u201d but then cut funding for pedestrian and bikeway capital projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, MoCo\u2019s record on pedestrian safety is not a bad\none when compared to the rest of Maryland. \nBut funding constraints could hinder its prospects for improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Pedestrian safety is arguably THE hottest issue in MoCo government right now.\u00a0 With several recent high profile pedestrian deaths and residents swarming a county council meeting on the subject, alarmed elected officials are terming pedestrian crashes a \u201cpublic health crisis\u201d and demanding action.\u00a0 The county has responded by hiring a full-time pedestrian … Continue reading How is MoCo Doing on Pedestrian Safety?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,33,38],"tags":[1545,1368,2303,1990],"class_list":["post-12269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-budget","category-transportation","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-budget","tag-pedestrian-safety","tag-transportation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-3bT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12273,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12269\/revisions\/12273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}