EDITORIAL: The steps Anchorage can take to reduce pedestrian deaths

Anchorage has a serious problem with car-pedestrian collisions — so much so that by the time you read this, the statistics may well be worse than when it was written. As September nears its end, 13 people have died on Anchorage roads this year after being hit by cars, a grim toll that matches the previous record (13, set in 2022) for an entire year — and we’ve still got three months left to go. Six have died this month alone. That toll should be unacceptable to all Anchorage residents, whether you drive, walk, ride a bike or some combination of the three.

The bad news

One of the toughest aspects of Anchorage’s pedestrian death toll is that some of the factors that contribute to it are deep-rooted and difficult to change, especially quickly. One is that although this year is far worse than usual, there are natural factors at play: This is the time of year when it gets dark in the evening, but there’s no snow yet on the ground to increase visibility for car headlights and highlight dark-silhouetted pedestrians. Combine that with dry streets that drivers feel safe taking at or above the speed limit, and it adds up to a situation where drivers can’t stop in time to avoid unexpected pedestrians in the traffic lanes.

The other difficult factor in solving pedestrian deaths is that Anchorage, like most U.S. cities, did most of its growing around the same time that car culture was exploding — and our infrastructure reflects that car-centric focus. Only in Downtown are pedestrian facilities, residences and businesses adequate to make foot traffic practical. Combine that with lower speed limits and better lighting in most of Downtown than other parts of the city, and it turns out that fatal car-pedestrian collisions there are relatively low considering the high concentration of people on foot.

And that’s the problem with the pedestrian situation in most of the city: Speed limits are high, light to see well is inadequate, and facilities that help people on foot transit roads safely are sparse and offer little protection — there have been plenty of car-pedestrian collisions at crosswalks, after all.

There has been a tendency in some quarters to blame pedestrians for the collisions they’re involved in, with people saying that they bear blame for crossing streets in poorly lit areas, while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, or for not watching out sufficiently for oncoming traffic. But while there’s certainly more pedestrians can do to make themselves more visible, the risks and consequences of the collisions fall so disproportionately on their shoulders that blaming the victims is crass at best — while we should do what we can to improve pedestrian behavior, the fact is that people who need to cross the road won’t walk a half-mile in the wrong direction to get to a sanctioned crossing area, nor is it realistic to expect them to do so. The solutions we can implement to help the problem are mostly on the side of improving driver awareness and behavior — as well as making it easier for pedestrians to get where they’re going without entering traffic lanes unexpectedly.

The good news

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. There are multiple actions we can take to reduce risks to pedestrians on Anchorage roads.

The Anchorage Assembly advanced a mostly symbolic ordinance Tuesday urging action on some of the most obvious levers that government can pull: Speed limits, lighting and an educational campaign about pedestrian safety. Though the measure was largely a call on others in the municipal and state government to take action, it did make a few concrete recommendations to help the issue — particularly a speed limit reduction on roads where pedestrians have been killed. Those with long commutes will surely not relish the prospect of a slower transit, but the fact of the matter is that collisions with pedestrians take place when drivers can’t stop in time, and slowing traffic not only increases the likelihood that drivers will be able to react but also decreases the likelihood that the speed of crashes will be fatal when they do take place.

More light on the streets is also a good idea, at least in the darker months — and particularly before there’s snow on the ground to aid in visibility. This is more toward a medium-term solution, as more lights cost money and take time to install, but that just makes it more important to start the ball rolling now.

The fundamental solutions to this problem are infrastructure-based, which means they will take time and money. We need to rethink our transportation system to separate pedestrians from cars that need to transit quickly from north to south or east to west. That can look different in different places, depending on what makes the most sense: pedestrian overpasses, separated non-motorized transit lanes, traffic control measures that keep pedestrians from trying to cross in unsafe areas. The Seward Highway corridor needs to be rerouted, a process that is now in the planning stages. And ultimately, the redesign of pedestrian-hostile roads such as the Gambell-Ingra couplet connecting the Seward and Glenn highways should incorporate design features that don’t lead to the unsafe pedestrian crossings we see today.

Improving pedestrian safety isn’t an insoluble problem, but it’s one that will require time, effort and money. Nothing will change, though, unless we start taking those first steps now. There was nothing easy about rebuilding the Port of Alaska, for example, but with sustained focused effort, it’s still possible for us to make needed infrastructure improvements. Fortunately for us, that money exists — pursuing federal transportation funds to aid safety improvements for pedestrians and other non-motorized users should be a top priority for the municipality, as well as the Alaska Legislature in its upcoming session. Because while making roads safer is expensive, it doesn’t hold a candle to the cost of our community having to bury more than a dozen of its own members each year because we made the wrong choices.