An elementary school student was hit by a car while walking home from school in Bowie on Friday.
A young boy from Tulip Grove Elementary was hit while walking home near the intersection of Terra and Traymore Lanes.(WTOP/John Domen)
A young boy from Tulip Grove Elementary was hit while walking home near the intersection of Terra and Traymore Lanes.(WTOP/John Domen)
An elementary school student was struck by a car while walking home from school in Bowie on Friday.
The young boy from Tulip Grove Elementary was walking home near the intersection of Terra and Traymore Lanes.
The child was conscious and breathing when he was taken to the hospital.
There’s no crosswalk at the intersection the child was trying to cross.
In a letter home to families, Principal Daleisha Myers asked parents to “discuss safety precautions with your child,” including looking both ways before crossing the street and avoiding distractions while in traffic.
“We would also like to take this moment to remind all families to please drive slowly and carefully through the community, especially during pick-up and drop-off times,” Myers wrote.
Police say the driver stayed on the scene.
The crash remains under investigation.
The county introduced stop sign cameras around the region earlier this year in hopes to keep pedestrians safe in areas where there’s busy road traffic.
Before installing the cameras, some municipalities reported drivers would blow through stop signs without coming to a complete stop roughly 80% of the time, or more. The program gained momentum in the county after two kids were struck and killed while trying to cross the street on their walk to school in Riverdale in 2023.
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An annual bike ride from Bethesda, Maryland, to D.C. kicks off Sunday to draw attention to the need for safer streets for all road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.
The fourth annual Ride for Your Life bike ride from Bethesda, Maryland, to D.C. is designed to draw attention to the need for safer streets for all road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.
The roughly 10-mile event is organized by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. It’s led by Dan Langenkamp, whose wife, diplomat Sarah Debbink Langenkamp, was killed while riding her bike along River Road in 2022.
The bike ride falls on the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims this Sunday, and Langenkamp told WTOP that the annual event, which has drawn over 1,000 participants in past years, “really is inspiring. Honestly, I love it.”
Langenkamp said more than 40,000 people died on roads in the U.S. in 2023, and that includes people in vehicles. Of those, 30% were on bikes or were pedestrians.
“I think we’re facing some challenges because cars are bigger than ever and heavier,” Langenkamp said. “We also have this issue with distraction. More people are looking at screens.”
However, he said there are signs of progress in making roadways safer. He pointed to technology, such as speed governors in vehicles and changes to roadway design.
The Maryland State Highway Administration is also installing new, marked bike lanes on River Road, along the route where Langenkamp’s wife was killed.
The Ride for Your Life event will begin at 10 a.m. at the Caroline Freeland Urban Park in downtown Bethesda and wind up at the Lincoln Memorial for a rally with speakers who will call on lawmakers to pass the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act. The bill would give states more leeway in using federal highway funds for adding safe biking and pedestrian infrastructure.
The effort, Langenkamp said, is centered on creating communities “so that they’re not only safer, but also just better places to live — more bikeable, more walkable, more friendly overall.”
Langenkamp said people can register for free online and at the start of the ride Sunday morning.
“It’s going to be great,” he said.
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Exploring a city on foot should be simple and safe, yet not every urban area makes walking easy or risk free. A new analysis from footwear company KURU ranks 36 major U.S. cities from most to least pedestrian friendly in 2025. The list combines WalkScore ratings with pedestrian fatality statistics, offering travelers insight into where walking is encouraged and where it may be more hazardous.
What Makes a City Safer for Walking
Transit and Street Design
New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago appear near the top of the safety rankings. These metros benefit from strong public transit networks, well marked crosswalks, traffic lights and street layouts that slow vehicles. Since many residents rely less on cars, there are fewer opportunities for dangerous collisions with pedestrians.
Walkability and Neighborhood Design
Higher Walk Scores reflect more connected sidewalks, short distances between destinations and lively mixed use districts. These features create an environment where walking is not only practical but also pleasant.
Why Some Cities Rank Lower for Pedestrian Safety
Car Dependent Layouts
Cities such as Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Mesa and Fort Worth sit on the riskier side of the list. Wide, high speed roads and suburban style sprawl limit walkability and encourage driving, putting pedestrians at greater risk.
Tourism and Traffic Levels
Visitor volume can add to the danger. Las Vegas and Charlotte, for instance, experience heavy tourist traffic while lacking robust pedestrian infrastructure, raising the likelihood of accidents for those on foot.
A Personal Note
I had not heard of KURU until my wife bought me a pair of their shoes for my birthday in May. After wearing them all summer and enjoying them so much that I ordered the same pair again, I now notice when the brand surfaces. Their pedestrian safety report caught my attention both as a traveler who loves cities and as someone who appreciates their footwear.
Once afraid to fly Johnny Jet is now a Forbes Top 10 Travel Influencer. He’s flown millions of miles explored 70+ countries and travels with his wife and two children.
Denver’s fast-moving, multi-lane Speer Boulevard is not the city’s most pedestrian-friendly street.
But what if it was?
The road, parts of which are among the city’s most dangerous corridors, could be radically changed if the city follows through on a new study that recommends an overhaul of Speer Boulevard between Colfax Avenue and Interstate 25 as it moves along the Auraria Campus, River Mile and Ball Arena area and much of Lower Downtown.
The study’s authors — a group of architecture firms commissioned by the city — suggest reformatting 1.5 miles of Speer Boulevard. Right now, the boulevard includes a pair of busy one-way streets, one on each side of Cherry Creek. This new “vision” would reduce it to a single road, with two lanes in each direction, occupying just a single side of the creek.
A rendering of the current layout of Speer Boulevard.Courtesy of the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure
A rendering of the proposed changes to Speer Boulevard.Courtesy of the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure
This change would be a massive overhaul to one of the busiest streets running through the heart of downtown. With Speer relocated to only one side of the creek, the entire other side could be freed up and turned into a landscaped series of public parks and recreational space.
The study also imagines the eventual addition of bus rapid transit — known as BRT — along Speer Boulevard, which could include a series of dedicated bus lanes and upgraded bus stops for faster public transit along the corridor.
(Elsewhere, the city will break ground on Denver’s first BRT line, which will run along East Colfax Avenue, this fall.)
The new Speer vision could turn what is essentially a highway through the heart of downtown into a pedestrian and transit paradise.
Making the change, however, would require hundreds of millions of dollars, years of planning and a significant change to how people navigate the corridor. Right now, it’s just a 54-page report and a grand vision. And there’s a long history of grand visions for Speer. Here’s what it might take to make this one happen.
The study imagines a future Denver with better public transit and fewer cars.
The new vision for Speer Boulevard comes as the city is reimagining much of downtown. Developers plan to transform 55 acres of parking lots around Ball Arena into housing, hotels, office space and entertainment venues.
That means the area around Speer Boulevard could see a massive transformation in the next few years.
A rendering of the proposed changes to Speer Boulevard.Courtesy of the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure
“Historically, Speer has been used by drivers and vehicles moving in and out of the city, often bypassing downtown,” the study’s authors wrote, adding that planned redevelopments would “reposition Speer from an arterial at the city’s edge to a street within the city’s center.”
Jill Locantore, executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership, has advocated for pedestrian upgrades to busy city streets for years. She wants Speer to be a part of the downtown transformation in the coming years.
“It’s designed like a highway when what it needs to be is a people-friendly Main Street,” she said.
In Denver, Speer pushed for the creation of new parks and parkways. One of his most consequential road projects was the redesign of what was then Cherry Creek Drive, which at the time was lined with shanties and industrial ruins, into what is now Speer Boulevard.
Famed city planner and landscape architect George Kessler and Denver’s own landscape architect S.R. DeBoer upgraded much of the road to a tree-lined drive with new parks, lampposts, and other amenities that enhanced the pedestrian experience, according to The Cultural Landscape Foundation. The creek was walled to keep it from flooding.
It was “the heart’s desire of the mayor that his name shall be perpetuated,” the Rocky Mountain News reported in 1908, so the city’s board of supervisors “railroaded through” a resolution renaming the road to Speer Boulevard in his honor.
This 1916 photo shows a much smaller and quieter Speer Boulevard, at right, where it intersects with E 7th Avenue. Courtesy Denver Public Library Special Collections, X-22674
“This would also be a good street to try enforcing [minimum speed limits],” one approving Rocky columnist wrote in 1958. “After all, one slow poke can hold up a whole line of cars.”
One out-there idea from the late 1960s would have added transit without infringing on car space. Noted railroad artist Otto Kuhler proposed an elevated monorail loop around Denver that would’ve straddled the creek.
That, of course, was never built.
Denver is about to re-pedestrianize and cut car space on other key roadways.
With the Colfax Avenue Bus Rapid Transit project breaking ground in October, the city is going all in on bus transit along that corridor. The nearly $300 million project, funded with a mix of federal and local money, will drop the infamous car-centric street down to just one lane in each direction between downtown and Aurora.
Plus, earlier this year, City Council rezoned large parts of that stretch to promote pedestrian-facing businesses over drive-thrus in anticipation of the BRT. Denver and state transportation officials are also studying a potential BRT along Federal Boulevard, one of the city’s most deadly streets.
In June, city officials also broke ground on a $15.5 million pedestrian improvement project along West Colfax that will add medians, signal crosswalks and landscaping along portions of the road.
Denver City Council is also thinking about how to better use Denver’s downtown waterways. A new Council committee started in July is thinking about how to make the South Platte River, which intersects with Cherry Creek and Speer, more accessible and better integrated into the city.
Reshaping Speer could be easier said than done.
The Speer plan acknowledges that a traditional traffic study might conclude that eliminating half of Speer’s traffic lanes wouldn’t be feasible because it could cause traffic gridlock.
But the study’s authors say a metamorphosis of the corridor is indeed possible — if 40 to 50 percent of the more than 5,000 drivers per hour that use Speer at peak times can be convinced to switch to transit, bicycle, or some other form of transportation.
Any bus service along this stretch would be starting from scratch, though. Unlike on Colfax, which holds the busiest RTD bus lines in its system, there is no local bus service along Speer north of Broadway. RTD cut its services significantly during the pandemic and has limited plans to restore them.
Still, Locantore, who helped advocate for projects like the West Colfax upgrades, has pushed for city and state leaders to extend their BRT plans to include this stretch of Speer. She believes a transformed Speer could happen.
“That’s exactly the kind of change that we need, but we’ll see how bold the city is willing to be in reimagining this particular corridor,” she said. “It would take community support, political will and funding.”
The study’s authors estimate their proposal would cost nearly $600 million to build — about double the cost of the Colfax bus project. That money isn’t in the budget just yet, and the city hasn’t announced its next steps.
What do you want the future of Speer Boulevard to look like? Drop us a line at [email protected].
There’s a new pedestrian bridge over Wiehle Avenue near Sunset Hills Road in Virginia, and runners and cyclists who have already used it said it’s making them feel safer.
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New bridge in Reston helping cyclists, runners feel safer along bustling Wiehle Avenue
Whenever Joel Kuester or one of the hundreds of other cyclists with the Reston Bike Club talked about having to cross the street at a busy and sometimes dangerous part of Wiehle Avenue, they compared it to a game of Frogger.
The crosswalk wasn’t at an intersection, so it wasn’t a point at which drivers were used to stopping. The crossing didn’t have a dedicated signal either, and cyclists and pedestrians had to count on several lanes worth of traffic stopping. There are “turns in all different directions,” so it was also confusing, Kuester said.
Supervisor Walter Alcorn, whose Hunter Mill District includes Reston, said he knows two people who have been injured at the crossing, and he’s heard of many others that have either been involved in an accident or a near-miss there.
But now that there’s a new pedestrian bridge over Wiehle Avenue near Sunset Hills Road, many of those concerns have been addressed. The bridge opened July 24, and many people who have already used it said it’s making them feel safer.
“It improves safety,” said Kuester, who’s vice chairman of the Reston Bike Club. “It allows us to continue on our rides without having to slow down and navigate the crossing. It just makes riding in this part of the town much, much easier and safer.”
The $12 million project has been years in the making. It was complicated, Alcorn said, because it involved multiple property owners. The bridge primarily sits on Northern Virginia Parks property, but the county had to get easements in land rights from adjoining property owners.
Then, earlier this summer, when it appeared the bridge would be ready to open, it was discovered that “there was not sufficient grounding for lightning strikes on the bridge,” which delayed the opening a few extra days, Alcorn said.
There’s still lingering work to finalize some parts of the project, such as removing the mid-block at grade crossing that Alcorn described as dangerous for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.
The Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail is closed on the west side of the new pedestrian bridge to finish road upgrades and build a new shared-use path along Wiehle Avenue. The sidewalk on the west side of Wiehle Avenue is also closed.
A ribbon cutting, Alcorn said, will be scheduled for sometime in the fall, but “for purposes of using the bridge, it’s all good to go now.”
Community members are already taking advantage.
John Koss, president of the group Reston Runners, called the area a “major superhighway for outdoor recreationalists.”
“Even though most of the motorists here are very courteous, sometimes they’d stop, sometimes they wouldn’t,” Koss said. “And if they did, you would only go halfway across to the middle island. You had to figure out what was coming the other way. But now this bridge simplifies everything.”
Bruce Wright, with the group Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling, said there have been many crashes at the site of the old crossing because it was close to a traffic signal.
“There has been probably at least one crash a year at that intersection,” Wright said.
Wright called the new bridge a “great way to get across Wiehle Avenue.”
“We don’t have to worry about it; the motorists don’t have to worry about us,” he said. “So, it’s kind of a win-win.”
Alcorn said the pedestrian bridge is one of the most expensive and advanced ways to avoid conflicts between cyclists, pedestrians and drivers. However, he said, the Board of Supervisors is working with Virginia’s Department of Transportation and other agencies to improve crosswalks and the visibility of crosswalks.
The board, Alcorn said, has committed $100 million over six years to improve bike and pedestrian safety around the county.
A new report from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association showed nationwide there was a more than 5% decline in fatal pedestrian crashes in 2023 compared to 2022.
After a big surge in fatal crashes that claimed the lives of pedestrians in recent years, a new report from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association showed nationwide there was a more than 5% decline in such crashes in 2023 compared to 2022.
But as encouraging as that sounds, the numbers are still much higher than those recorded nationwide before the pandemic, and still over 77% higher compared to 2010.
While the nationwide numbers are lower, both Maryland and D.C. saw increases from 2022. The increase in the District was small — 20 fatal pedestrian crashes last year compared to 19 in 2022.
But in Maryland, the increase was much higher. Statewide, there were 161 crashes that left a pedestrian dead last year — 24 more than the year before. That tied for the second largest increase in the country, behind only Colorado, which saw 29 more fatal crashes involving pedestrians last year than in 2022.
California, Arizona, New York and Virginia saw the most significant declines in such crashes, with 38 fewer pedestrians dying on Virginia roads last year. Even though Maryland is a much smaller state, 28 more pedestrians died on its roads last year compared to Virginia.
“Generally speaking, we are seeing a lot of pedestrian deaths still in suburban areas,” said Jonathan Adkins, CEO of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association. “Certainly, Maryland has a lot of suburban areas — thinking about suburban D.C., thinking about suburban Baltimore — sometimes the infrastructure isn’t as forgiving or as allowing of pedestrians to be walking in those areas. So there’s probably not just one factor, there’s probably a few different things going on here.”
Chrissy Nizer, the head of Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration and the state’s highway safety rep, acknowledged the sharp increase to levels not seen since 2007. She reiterated the importance of slowing down, especially when driving through work zones or near crosswalks.
“We all have to look out for each other — that’s both drivers and pedestrians following the rules of the road,” Nizer said. “Pedestrians and other vulnerable roadway users, like bicyclists, they don’t have the protection that we do in vehicles.”
While the numbers cover all parts of Maryland, Prince George’s County Councilwoman Wanika Fisher said the increase is also an indication of the growing urbanization of this region.
Fisher, who during her time on the council has pressed for more pedestrian protections in her district, which includes Hyattsville and Langley Park, said roads built by the state decades ago haven’t kept up with the increasing housing density in those areas.
“Our economic thoroughfares are all on state highway roads,” Fisher said. “And the standards that we’re using on walkability, like whether you can have a sidewalk, a guarded rail, the different lighting, the flashing lights on crossing and all of those things, we’re using standards that haven’t been updated.”
And she suggested some of the studies conducted also happen at times when roads aren’t in their heaviest use by both vehicles and pedestrians.
“Riggs Road is used so much … it’s crazy,” Fisher said. “I know it’s millions of dollars to put sidewalks on the entire Riggs Road, but at least have a priority area because people are walking in that community all the time and it’s really, really difficult to walk that road.”
There were at least three fatal pedestrian crashes on or at intersections crossing Riggs Road last year, including two in one week.
“What kills pedestrians? It’s drivers speeding too fast,” Adkins said. “And one of the most immediate ways to address that is to have law enforcement out. You don’t even have to write a ticket, but just to have law enforcement out being visible.”
Adkins also echoed the need for road improvements.
“There’s not a mystery about what needs to be done. We need to have better infrastructure, better enforcement of traffic laws, and we also need to use automated enforcement,” he added. “Use a speed camera out there to slow drivers down; that will make everybody safe. You’ve got to do it fairly and equitably. But it works.”
Going forward, Nizer said, reserving funding for safety needs on all roads, not just major interstates and highways, will be taken into consideration when projects are considered.
It’s called the “Complete Street Policy,” which is about “making sure that we’re designing our roadways considering all roadway users, not just the cars that need to get back and forth.”
But more immediately, Fisher and Nizer were both in agreement that drivers need to be more careful, and pedestrians need to also do their part and pay attention to their surroundings.
“It all starts with each and every one of us,” Nizer said.
For drivers, she said it’s about buckling up, putting the phone down and making sure nobody is impaired behind the wheel.
“A high rate of speed leads to worse injuries,” she added.
Adkins also praised some of the steps being taken in Virginia, but he still cautioned against reading too much into the numbers so far.
While the overall news was on the positive side, one year doesn’t make a trend. And the reality is pedestrian fatalities are up sharply. All other combined traffic fatalities are also up noticeably, too.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Adkins said.
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Leroy Williams waits to cross 17th Avenue at Garfield Street to get to City Park, May 16, 2017.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
17th and 18th avenues — two fast-moving one-way streets, particularly as they approach downtown — are getting a safety overhaul as part of the city’s effort to end traffic deaths, a trend that has only increased in recent years.
The proposed changes are just that: proposals. The city is still seeking feedback to refine the plan.
But what officials hear could reshape 17th and 18th avenues between Broadway and Colorado Boulevard.
How so?
Most notably, cars would drop down from three to two lanes of cars on 17th Avenue between Logan Street and Washington Street, and on 18th Avenue between Washington Street and Pennsylvania Street. This would decrease the number of lanes cyclists must cross along the Pearl Street bikeway.
The city would also add flashing crosswalks at those spots.
In an effort to speed up bus traffic, the city would also install curb extensions at eastbound bus stops along 17th Avenue that would expand space for riders and stop buses from pulling in and out of traffic, cutting down travel time.
The plan would add lane shifts at certain sections alongside 18th Avenue which would prompt cars to slow down.
The two avenues would also get curb extensions with paint and posts, extending the sidewalk line, improving visibility, shortening the crossing distance for pedestrians and slowing down cars.
But Denver is still a ways out from shovels in the ground.
The city plans to complete designs by spring of 2025 at the latest.
ALBANY COUNTY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — After two fatal train accidents over the weekend, railroad safety officials want to remind everyone to stay safe around train tracks. In 2022, more than 40 railroad crashes occurred in New York, causing three deaths and seventeen injuries, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. And rail passenger advocates like Steve Strauss, Executive Director of the Empire State Passengers Association, said the numbers have been worsening.
“The train speeds in the Albany area are among the highest in the state. Because Amtrak controls a lot of that right of way,” Strauss said. “People should never cross tracks except at signalized intersections.
The non-profit group New York Operation Life Saver provides safety courses for first responders and bus drivers from instructors in the railroad industry. Their website also shares safety videos on what a driver must do if stuck on the tracks, along with pedestrian safety tips. For example, pedestrians should walk on paved railroad trails instead of along the railroad tracks.
During his courses, Phil Merens, State Coordinator of New York Operation Life Saver, said he shares a sobering fact with conductors and engineers.
“If you drive a train for ten years, there’s a great chance that you…your train…will hit and kill somebody,” he said.
Merens said the accident would not be the driver’s fault since it takes a mile or more for a train to stop at 55 miles per hour. He also shared that even though about a third of accidents are from suicides, the rest are due to either a person being distracted while listening to music or being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“So by the time an engineer sees somebody, the only thing they can do is put it into emergency mode, and usually we’re sitting right by a crossing, and you can see about a ¼ of a mile in each direction,” Merens said. “That’s obviously not enough to stop.”
Railroad advocates share that the best thing the public can do when seeing any track is immediately think a train could be coming and look both ways.
“We’re in a modern age with precise engineering has made trains-they’re still incredibly powerful- but they’re much more silent, much quieter any you don’t hear them,” Phil Merens said. “You just don’t hear them until they are right on top of you.”
