City Councilmembers Say More Should Be Done to Prevent Pedestrian and Bicyclist Fatalities in Pasadena

From PasadenaNow.com

BY KEITH CALAYAG

While Councilmembers agree that the Department of Transportation’s Traffic Safety Campaign could help get drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians to follow traffic laws, they also believe more should be done to prevent traffic collision fatalities in the city.

During the Municipal Services Committee meeting on Tuesday, City Associate Engineer Donson Liu reported that Pasadena has reported a consistently high number of pedestrian/bike crashes in each of the last four years, with 2-6 fatalities per year.

55% of those who were killed or injured were seniors while 13% were homeless people.

According to Liu, cars in Pasadena are traveling 2 miles per hour faster overall when comparing 2021 to pre-pandemic 2019 conditions.

Aside from an uptick in speed, the DOT has also seen “blatant disregard for signages,” according to DOT Director Laura Cornejo.

Liu said that the previous campaigns on road safety were “well received” by residents but “do not appear to have a correlation to crash, injury and speeding data.”

Photo by Martin Magnemyr on Unsplash

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