Girl’s death renews pedestrian concerns

The November death of a 4-year-old girl struck by a car while crossing South Cobb Drive with her mother and three siblings has renewed calls for transportation officials to install pedestrian “refuge islands” on multi-lane roadways.

PEDS, an Atlanta pedestrian advocacy organization, wants more of the islands built on roads served by public transit. The islands are concrete medians several inches high that give those trying to cross multi-lane highways near bus stops a safe place to stop halfway across the road.

“Pedestrian attempts to judge vehicle speed and distance while crossing five lanes of highway-speed traffic are imperfect and sometimes deadly,” said Michael Orta, program manager for PEDS.

According to Smyrna police, Altamesa Walker and her four children were not in a crosswalk when they were struck by a car near a Cobb Community Transit bus stop on five-lane South Cobb Drive during the early-morning darkness of Nov. 17.

Four members of the family sustained only superficial injuries, but Walker’s 4-year-old daughter, Brandee Kelley, was pronounced dead at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

Orta said the nearest crosswalk is about 1,050 feet from the bus stop that police said Walker and her children were trying to reach.

“The road is just 64 feet across, ” Orta said. “Using the nearest available crosswalk would require walking 2,100 feet, which is nearly a half-mile. People just won’t do that.”

In letters sent to county transportation planners, Orta said the raised medians would enable pedestrians to:

> Focus on only one direction of traffic at a time;

> Cross the roadway in two stages, which requires shorter gaps in traffic than waiting to get a gap in both directions;

> Have a safe refuge in the middle of the road, without the risk from turning cars that stopping in a center turn lane involves; and

> Be more visible to drivers while having a better view of oncoming traffic.

The University of North Carolina’s Highway Safety Research Center has estimated the costs for installing refuge islands at $4,000 to $30,000, depending on the design of the island.

Laraine Vance, planning division manager for the Cobb County Department of Transportation, said 64 miles of thoroughfares in unincorporated Cobb already have raised divided medians. More medians are planned, she said.

South Cobb Drive, where the 4-year-old girl was killed in November, is a state route and is under jurisdiction of the Georgia DOT, Vance said.

She said that refuge islands “typically restrict turning movements, and if not properly designed, can create problems for vehicles attempting to use the center turn lane.”

Vance said some efforts to improve pedestrian safety, such as a state DOT program to enhance crosswalks along Buford Highway, have had only limited success because pedestrians can still cross between the sidewalks.

The bottom line, according to Vance: “Pedestrians cross the road wherever they want.”

In 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available, the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety reported that Cobb, Fulton and DeKalb counties led the state in pedestrian fatalities, with 16 each.

PEDESTRIAN SAFETY

County ….Pedestrian crashes….Injuries….Fatalities

Fulton ….543 ………………429 ……..16

DeKalb ….307 ………………264 ……..16

Gwinnett ..149 ………………117 ……..12

Cobb ……141 ………………104 ……..16

Clayton….126 ………………103……….7

Source: Governor’s Office of Highway Safety