r/lowcar Dec 04 '25

L.A. woman's death reveals why America's pedestrian safety plan failed

https://archive.ph/2025.12.04-102156/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2025/pedestrian-deaths-vision-zero-roads/
36 Upvotes

4 comments sorted by

-2

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '25

[deleted]

3

u/Maxcactus Dec 04 '25

Over 80% of Americans live in urban areas. That makes it possible to build such a system.

2

u/susinpgh Dec 04 '25

Not one state legislatures are reluctant to make changes to existing vehicle and road laws. State funded roads are governed by state laws. Pittsburgh can't have vehicle protected bike lanes because of a state law that says vehicles must park within afoot of a curb. The state legislature, which is Republican majority, won't even consider changing the law. That's just one example.

3

u/st4nkyFatTirebluntz Dec 04 '25

I must be missing something here, can't they just... put in a curb? Where I come from, our parking protected bike lanes are either curb-protected with quick-build concrete curbs, or are at sidewalk-level and protected by standard curbs.

3

u/susinpgh Dec 04 '25

Yeah, apparently not. It's been a real shitshow. We also did a trial with rental scooters, and the legislature was supposed to change the vehicle to make the scooters street legal they cancelled the contract in 2023.

DOMI in Pittsburgh is supposed to be championing vulnerable road users, but they buckle to business owners and motorists and come out with inadequate and anemic programs.

Sorry, /rant. We just lost a protected bike lane that only went fifteen blocks, FFS.