Ensuring Pedestrian Safety: What Cities Can Do to Improve Infrastructure
What better way to enjoy the nice weather outside than to take a nice long walk around your neighbourhood? Not only is it a healthy exercise for your body but it also helps you unwind and get a much needed mental break as well.
However, with cities becoming more densely populated, there’s a high chance that you’ll end up frustrated by the traffic noise or worse, end up in a pedestrian accident.
Walking remains one of the most sustainable, accessible, and healthiest ways to get around, yet as pedestrians we often face poorly designed infrastructure, unsafe crossings, and fast-moving traffic.
Governments around the world have made big steps in promoting public transportation and reducing car emissions, but walkability is still too often overlooked in city planning. The result? Unsafe streets that discourage walking and increase the risk of injury or death.
To reverse this trend, cities need to prioritize pedestrian-focused infrastructure and make safety a core part of urban development.
Walking is definitely not getting the good rep it deserves and it’s time for local authorities to do something in order to ensure that their pedestrians are safe when taking their morning stroll or having an afternoon walk in the park.
Why pedestrian safety is endangered
Despite efforts to create more livable cities, pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise in many parts of the world. In the United States, for example, pedestrian deaths have increased by over 50% in the past decade.
The rise of SUVs, distracted driving, and speeding are just some of the contributing factors.
Many cities, especially in car-centric countries, were built with vehicles in mind, not people. This creates an environment where pedestrians are treated as secondary users of the road, rather than key participants in urban mobility.
Pedestrian danger isn't just about crossing streets. Cities need to be walkable and favor the safety of those more vulnerable to the incoming traffic.
Until the infrastructure is improved, we will continue facing the high number of pedestrian accidents. In these types of situations, the injured pedestrians need to find an experienced pedestrian accident attorney to help them get through all the red tape and insurance company negotiations.
How to ensure pedestrian safety
There are many ways to ensure pedestrian safety and improve the current infrastructure so that it prioritizes the safety of pedestrians. Apart from improving the infrastructure it’s also important to raise awareness about the issue.
And not only to educate drivers but to educate pedestrians as well on the important safety practices.
1. Build and maintain sidewalks
Sidewalks are the foundation of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. Without them, people are forced to walk along the edge of busy roads, which significantly increases the risk of accidents.
Cities must ensure that sidewalks are continuous, wide enough for safe passage, and kept in good condition. This includes removing obstacles like utility poles or overgrown vegetation and repairing cracks or uneven surfaces that could cause falls.
In remote parts of the city, pedestrians are usually forced to walk along the road as there are usually no sidewalks. This is a big concern and local authorities need to prioritize areas that are lacking sidewalks.
2. Implement traffic-calming measures
Traffic-calming strategies like speed bumps, raised crosswalks, curb extensions, and narrowed lanes help slow down vehicles in areas where there are many pedestrians.
Slower traffic not only reduces the chances of collisions but also minimizes the severity of injuries if an accident does occur. These design elements send a clear message to drivers that they are entering spaces where people on foot have priority.
Also, these areas should be marked with proper traffic signs that point to the fact that drivers are entering a pedestrian-heavy zone.
3. Improve street lighting
Poor lighting is a major contributor to nighttime pedestrian accidents. When drivers can’t see people crossing the road or walking along sidewalks, the chance of a collision increases dramatically. Adding bright, evenly distributed lighting, especially at intersections and crosswalks enhances visibility and helps both drivers and pedestrians make safer decisions after dark.
It’s also recommended that pedestrians be extra careful at night when crossing the streets as drivers usually don’t expect a lot of pedestrians late at night.
4. Create clearly marked crosswalks
Many pedestrian injuries happen at intersections due to poorly marked or nonexistent crosswalks. Cities can improve safety by installing high-visibility crosswalks, pedestrian signals, and countdown timers that clearly communicate when it is safe to cross.
The countdown is based on the walking speed and crossing distance and these should be implemented wherever possible as they help both pedestrians and drivers.
In busy or multi-lane roads, adding pedestrian islands can offer a safe midpoint for crossing in two stages.
Key takeaways
Improving pedestrian safety isn’t just about reducing accidents—it’s about making cities feel like places where people actually want to walk. It’s about kids getting to school safely, older adults feeling confident crossing the street, and everyone having the freedom to move around without constantly worrying about traffic.
At the heart of it, this is about public health, fairness, and making our cities more livable and sustainable.
To make real progress, cities need to rethink how they design and prioritize their streets. That means investing in basic things like wider, well-kept sidewalks, clearly marked crosswalks, lower speed limits in busy areas, and making sure traffic laws are actually enforced.
It also means educating both drivers and pedestrians, and putting people—not cars—at the center of urban planning.
The good news is that some cities are already stepping up. They’re adding speed bumps, redesigning intersections, and adopting policies that make roads safer for everyone, not just drivers. But for this kind of change to really stick, we need more than just isolated efforts, we need a bigger shift in mindset. Walking shouldn’t be a risk; it should be a right.