ATLANTA — October is Pedestrian Safety Month and agencies are warning that pedestrian roadway deaths are on the climb.
Local organization Propel ATL says Georgia is one of the worst states when it comes to safety for pedestrians along the roads.
Executive Director Rebecca Serna said that in Atlanta, bicyclists and pedestrians make up less than 2% of all crashes, but over 12% of fatal and serious injury crashes.
“We have seen a year-to-year increase in people walking and using wheelchairs being hit," Serna said.
National statistics show that since 2011, pedestrian and cyclist deaths have increased by 64% to an estimated 8,413 in 2022.
That problem is especially bad in Atlanta, according to Propel ATL.
"The way that a lot of our streets in Atlanta and throughout the state of Georgia have been designed in the last 50 years have been very much about how can we get cars through here as fast as possible. Less than 10% of our streets account for 73% of fatal and serious injury crashes," she said.
Families like Brittany Glover's and Alexia Hyneman's have felt the pain of losing a loved one. Glover was hit and killed by a hit-and-run driver a year ago, and Hyneman died a similar way in 2016.
Their families are now advocating for safer roads for pedestrians.
"Reducing the speed limit would be one way to be held accountable," Glover's mother told 11Alive earlier this year. "Putting in the signage - a stop sign for the pedestrians to be assisted to walk on their own."
Thomas Hyneman, Alexia's father, agrees.
"Accidents happen. I've been told this my whole life," he said. "I just didn't know at the time that this was preventable."
Serna says that people of color are disproportionately affected by these incidents, too.
"Some go back to racist policy decisions like redlining, where neighborhoods couldn't be developed or invested in because of these federal guidelines that said that banks and other public dollars couldn't go into these neighborhoods. You see a lack of sidewalk infrastructure, for example. And then because people were left out of the planning process, you see a lot of these dangerous high speed streets concentrated in communities of color," she explained. "You see a lot of these dangerous high speed streets concentrated in communities of color and particularly when you combine that with the economic factors at play where people have less access to cars are ore likely to be walking or riding the bus."
Serna is hopeful things will start to improve, with the help of city councilmembers and the families who keep pushing for change.