Redesigning the Downtown of an Expansive Sunbelt City: The Phoenix Case

ABSTRACT

Non-motorized traffic safety is a major public health concern, especially in the sprawling sunbelt cities of the United States. Phoenix is ranked quite high on the number of pedestrian and cyclist crashes in North American cities. This article analyses non-motorist safety incidents in downtown Phoenix. Non-motorist safety concerns were addressed by examining crash types in order to suggest adequate safety treatments. We also demonstrated the use of a countermeasure framework for higher crash locations denominated hotspots. Our findings indicate that it is important to implement a combination of countermeasures to reduce the high number of non-motorist crashes in city centers.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-motorized safety
• crashes
• expansive U.S. sunbelt
• Arizona
• Phoenix

Acknowledgments

This study was an attempt to help implement some of the objectives of the Arizona Department of Health Services’ Injury Surveillance and Prevention Plan. Especially important to our research was objective three, which was aimed at improving pedestrian and bicyclist safety by reducing the total number of fatalities and injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes. We would like to thank Pam Goslar, Dean Brennan, Mike Cynecki, Kerry Wilcoxon, Jacob Martinez, Eric Anderson, Maureen DeCindis, Sarath Joshua, Reed Kempton, Eric Iwersen, Michael Sanders, Aaron Golub, and Joseph Perez for their collaborations in various aspects of this research. This manuscript is dedicated to the late Pranav Singhal (1982–2009), a graduate of ASU’s MUEP program and to Mary Kihl, professor emerita at Arizona State University, who passed away in 2007. Their invaluable contributions to improving Phoenix’s built environment are surely missed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Catholic Healthcare West [St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix].