By Don Kostelec
October 2, 2019

“Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and
welfare of the public…” – Canon 1, ASCE Code of Ethics.

Jim Tymon, Executive Director of AASHTO, tweeted on September 23: “The top priority for state DOTs & @aashtospeaks has been – and will always remain – the safety of all #transportation system users.”

The horse came up lame before Tymon’s memo reached Idaho, apparently.

A year ago a motorcyclist was killed as he rounded a curve in Boise’s I-184 as is approaches downtown. He fell in a gap of the structure between the eastbound and westbound lanes and died as a result of the fall. Investigators determined he was traveling at an unsafe speed when he crashed, the results of which are amplified by the curve in the highway and the gap between the two structures.

Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.

The victim’s brother has come to the fore with a solution: Putting a net or similar barrier in the gap so when people do crash, the result of the crash is not as catastrophic. The Idaho Press article notes there are several similar crashes in this location.

by Don Kostelec
September 7, 2019

Beware: Wireless phone companies are coming to invade sidewalks in order to make a profit at the expense of sidewalk users, especially people with disabilities.

It appears that public agencies are failing to do their due diligence to inspect and regulate them properly.

While taking a walk to clear my mind during my daughter’s latest hospital stay, I came across newly-installed 5G technology from Verizon Wireless. This one is along Emerald Street in Boise. It is at a pedestrian crossing that links destinations within a medical services district and is adjacent to a bus stop.

Instead of the large cell towers we are accustomed to seeing, the 5G networks rely on smaller cells placed throughout the network. The wireless companies see existing traffic signal poles as ideal locations to place their 5G equipment.

The wireless companies also seem to view the sidewalk as disposable public space.

by Don Kostelec
September 4, 2019

New York City DOT made news last week with a report titled Distraction Shouldn’t be Deadly. Their bold statement was “DOT found little concrete evidence that device-induced distracted walking contributes significantly to pedestrian fatalities and injuries.”

What stood out most in this report was the data they provided from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and their Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). FARS is the national go-to database for data on traffic fatalities despite having some limitations. Nearly every agency uses it to report on safety-related data. You can sort FARS data many different ways among different transportation modes.

The NYCDOT table shows “pedestrian fatalities involving pedestrian use of portable electronic devices” as a function of all pedestrian fatalities. The report cites NHTSA FARS data indicating that 1/10^th of 1 percent of pedestrian deaths were due to distraction on the part of the pedestrian using an electronic device. That’s one out of every 1,000.

I’ve seen this data cited in other places, but had not seen it linked to a source. Until now.

The data is housed in the NHTSA FARS Encyclopedia on Pedestrians: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/People/PeoplePedestrians.aspx