Transportation Safety

Large numbers of people will only shift their mode of travel to walking or bicycling if they feel safe. Cleveland is using the STAR Communities protocol by using pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities as an indicator, largely because of its interconnectedness with transportation choices.

Source: STAR Communities, NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System

Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design report ranks the 104 largest metro areas in the country by a “Pedestrian Danger Index,” or PDI. PDI is a calculation of the share of local commuters who walk to work and the most recent data on pedestrian deaths. As of 2019, the highest PDI among metro areas was 3,210, and the lowest was 43. The lower the number, the safer a city is for pedestrians.

Source: Dangerous by Design

*2018 Graph data not available
Updated 09/17/2019