Dallas is a difficult and often dangerous city in which to walk around. Its sidewalks are tiny; its streetscapes dominated by cars; corners are rounded, which allow cars to zoom through right turns; intersections tend to be gargantuan; and often walking from neighborhood to neighborhood requires traipsing across parking lots or underneath overpasses. Not surprisingly, Dallas’ “walk score” is about half the score of cities like Chicago and New York, and it even falls far behind Los Angeles.
But when it comes to pedestrian safety, Dallas is not nearly as dangerous as basically every city in Florida. That is according to Smart Growth America’s “Dangerous by Design” report that looked at which American cities experienced the most pedestrian deaths from 2005-2014. Who is at the top of the list? Fort Myers, Fla., which averages 2.55 pedestrian fatalities for every 100,000 residents annually. The rest of the top 10 is rounded out by other cities in Florida as well as Jackson, Miss. and Memphis, which come in at eight and nine, respectively.
Dallas-Fort Worth squeaks into the 25 spot. The study found that 1.32 pedestrians are killed in the DFW metro area per 100,000 residents each year. That’s the third worst in Texas, behind Houston and McAllen.
One curious note: the vast majority of cities in the top 25 are in the southern United States. Other troubling correlations: People of color account for 34.9 percent of the national population but make up 46.1 percent of pedestrian deaths, and low-income metro areas are more dangerous than higher-income ones.
