On Phoenix's most dangerous streets, little has been done to address the pedestrian death toll

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Pedestrian deaths have soared where roads encourage dangerously high driving speeds. Is the city doing enough?

Jessica Mendoza has heard many stories of pedestrians getting hit and killed in her north-central Phoenix neighborhood.

As she talks about what makes her feel unsafe, one thing keeps coming up: speed.

"Even when we're coming out of church, cars don't slow down," Mendoza said. "It's scary to even stand outside in front of church."

She lives near the deadliest area for pedestrians in Arizona: a dimly lit section of 27th Avenue, just north of Bethany Home Road. On this half-mile stretch of pavement six people were killed from 2010 to 2017. Four others were seriously injured, according to state Department of Transportation data.

For Mendoza, the road's dangers are more than state statistics or neighborhood lore. They're personal. 

Two years ago her father, Jesus Mendoza, was struck and killed by a pickup truck on 27th Avenue.

There's no one reason that cars hit pedestrians. People may make a choice to step into a lane. Drivers may make a choice to look away from the road. 

Like most of the pedestrians killed along 27th Avenue, Jesus Mendoza was intoxicated. Of the more than 1,300 pedestrians killed during that eight-year period, half had alcohol or drugs in their system, according to state data.

But interviews with safety experts and an Arizona Republic analysis of 12,000 pedestrian injuries and deaths chronicled in state collision data reveal two common factors. Both are as much about the design of the roads as the decisions of the people. 

Most pedestrians who are killed are hit when they cross outside a marked crosswalk, the area commonly referred to as "midblock."

And most pedestrian deaths happen on stretches of road designed to encourage higher speeds.

Dozens of cities across the United States have begun redesigning their streets in response to surging pedestrian death rates in recent years, setting a target of zero roadway deaths. But in Arizona, there's almost no commitment to that goal. 

DATABASE:  See an interactive map of pedestrian fatalities, injuries statewide

Being struck by a car while walking now ranks among the most common causes of death in the state. Preliminary data show pedestrian deaths rose again in 2018.

Phoenix, which has the state's highest rate of pedestrian deaths among cities with populations above 10,000, has largely ignored its deadliest areas for pedestrians even as the number of pedestrians killed by cars has more than doubled since 2010.

Between 2010 and 2017, a number of serious injuries and fatalities have occurred on 27th Avenue near Bethany Home Road in Phoenix.
Between 2010 and 2017, a number of serious injuries and fatalities have occurred on 27th Avenue near Bethany Home Road in Phoenix. John Paul McDonnall/The Republic

In the past five years, Phoenix has installed more than 20 new crosswalks. But almost none of them were built in locations that have had high fatality rates, according to The Republic's analysis. 

A handful of the city's high-crash areas will get the signals, called pedestrian hybrid beacons, in coming years. But some, including 27th Avenue, will wait until 2022.

And street-design changes to slow traffic are years away. Until plans for specific corridors are revealed, it's unknown what Phoenix or other cities will really do to address the wave of deaths. 

“What attention do we give a serial killer?” asked Stacey Champion, a Phoenix resident and PR professional who has urged the city make its streets safer. “Why is this any different?”

Officials say a lack of funding has slowed upgrades, at some high-crash areas, but the deaths have caught their attention.

"Especially with the recent stark increase in the collisions and serious injuries and fatalities, we're doing a lot more than ever," said Mario Paniagua, deputy city manager.

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By the time the signal is installed on 27th Avenue, Mendoza said, "there’ll probably be five more deaths."

"How many more people need to die?" Mendoza said. "It makes me angry that it took this long for the city to see this, and all these people had to lose a loved one."

Explore Phoenix crash hot spots

Red symbols show the location of crash hot spots in Phoenix, according to The Republic's analysis. Yellow symbols show where the city has placed its crossing signals. Click on the symbols to learn more about the areas and HAWK signals.

Signals not in high-crash areas

Phoenix has more than 40 special, high-visibility pedestrian crossing signals throughout the city. Officials plan to more than double that number by 2022.

Also known as HAWK signals, they look a lot like a standard traffic light except the three lights turn on only when a pedestrian presses a button. When activated, they flash red, urging cars to stop until the crosswalk is clear.

The signals are typically placed midblock or at the intersection of a major road and a side road.

On 35th Avenue in Phoenix, a HAWK crossing signal hangs above a crosswalk.
On 35th Avenue in Phoenix, a HAWK crossing signal hangs above a crosswalk. Agnel Philip/The Republic

Safety experts say they show promise in making roadways safer for pedestrians. In Tucson, where the signals were developed, federal researchers saw a 69 percent reduction in pedestrian crashes, according to their 2010 study.

Despite the signals' potential to save lives, The Republic analysis showed the city is installing them in areas where no pedestrians were seriously injured or killed in recent years. Among the 23 signals the city has built or plans to build this year, half aren't within 300 feet of serious injury or fatality crashes during the period The Republic analyzed.

“It’s bizarro world in traffic engineering,” said Sean Sweat, a Phoenix resident and president of the Urban Phoenix Project, which advocates for urban design and slower, safer streets. “They might be putting HAWKs in nonsensical places because they have nonsensical rules for making decisions.”

Many of the signals installed in low-crash areas were funded by schools, which pay half or all the cost, city officials said. Others were requested by residents and businesses.

The city uses potential usage and crash history to prioritize and approve the projects. But the city only recently began targeting roads with histories of deadly crashes.

The discrepancy has gotten the attention of City Council members.

"We should focus on a more data-driven approach to deploying these things," said Sam Stone, chief of staff for District 6 Councilman Sal DiCiccio.

Deadly areas unchanged for decades

The Republic identified a dozen Phoenix streets where at least 10 serious collisions or five deaths occurred within 300 feet of one another.  

The collisions accounted for less than 10 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in the city between 2010 and 2017.

But these key clusters shared familiar characteristics that make them particularly dangerous for pedestrians — wide roads and few crossings. Most: 

  • Had at least five travel lanes.
  • Had 40 mph speed limits.
  • Had pedestrian deaths that occurred away from intersections with traffic signals.
  • Had not been redesigned in at least two decades.

None of the hot spots is slated for lane or speed-limit reductions, and only one has a HAWK signal, though six others will get at least one by 2022.

McDowell Road between 40th and 43rd streets, where cars killed five pedestrians between 2010 and 2017, is among the streets that won’t get a signal until 2022.

The road is also five travel lanes wide with a 40 mph speed limit. And its proximity to bus stops and freeway exits means there’s plenty of vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Champion, the Phoenix resident, questioned why certain areas got priority over McDowell Road. In particular, she said she was concerned the HAWK signal on Central Avenue north of Camelback Road may have been prioritized to expand access to local businesses. City officials confirmed a request from businesses played a role in that signal's construction.

“How many more people have to die before it’s pushed up on the list?” she said of the McDowell Road and 40th Street hot spot in particular. “Why is one area more high profile than another one?”


Most crash hot spots haven’t been redesigned in decades


McDowell Road east of 40th Street in Phoenix was expanded between 1986 and 1991. It hasn’t been redesigned since. Use the slider below to see what it looked like before the change and in 2017. Source: Maricopa County historical aerial photographs

Pedestrian deaths affected non-White communities at disproportionate rates, especially Native Americans and Alaskan Natives whose share of fatalities was four times higher than their share of the state's population, according to The Republic's analysis of federal fatality data. The state data doesn't provide race or ethnicity information.

Champion said disadvantaged communities might not have the same success in calling for improvements.

"The underserved communities oftentimes are the last on the list for everything when really they should be the first if we're talking about protecting our most vulnerable citizens," she said.

Meanwhile, eight signals will be installed this year to improve Grand Canal's walkway, including one at a hot spot identified by The Republic on Indian School Road. Officials hope the 10-mile canal path will expand transportation options for residents.

The signals on the deadliest sections of roadway, including McDowell Road and 27th Avenue, are paid for by a federal safety grant, and the funding won't become available until 2021. The city is also planning signals using a different grant from the Maricopa Association of Governments.

“Do I wish the federal process was faster to where the funding wasn’t so many years out when you applied for it?” said Carl Langford, Phoenix's traffic engineering supervisor. “Absolutely. Especially dealing with safety aspects, you always want to try to fix it.”

“We’re doing as best as we can,” he said.

Langford said crash hot spots can move from year to year, making it difficult to use a completely data-driven approach to placing signals.

On McDowell Road between 40th and 43rd streets, cars killed five pedestrians and seriously injured others between 2010 and 2017.
On McDowell Road between 40th and 43rd streets, cars killed five pedestrians and seriously injured others between 2010 and 2017. John Paul McDonnall/The Republic

The city recently created a pedestrian safety task force, including police, the streets department and city manager's office. The group successfully sought a pedestrian signal on 35th Avenue near Indian School Road based, in large part, on a string of high-profile crashes there last year, Langford said.

Paniagua, Phoenix's deputy city manager, said the city is more responsive to crash trends than it has been in the past.

Signals don't prevent every collision. Last week, an 89-year-old man was killed about 300 feet from the signal at Indian School Road and 30th Street, which he didn't use.

Bob Schneider, an associate professor of sustainable transportation at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said the city's approach isn't necessarily wrong. Some high-risk locations can go years without a death, he said.

But some residents are fed up with what they see as a lack of action.

About 50 people gathered in December to call for more signals and streetlights at an intersection on Southern Avenue near where at least three people were struck over a few weeks. City officials said they’re working with residents on the best solution.

Manuel Villaverde, 60, was struck while crossing Southern Avenue on Dec. 22 to cash his paycheck at a convenience store. His brother, Steve Villarverde, told The Republic he used the same route every week even though there was no crosswalk.

"He would be alive if he hadn't had to cross the street," Steve Villaverde said.

Pedestrian deaths: Where are the deadliest hot spots in the Phoenix area?
What are the deadliest pedestrian crossings in Phoenix, and what's being done about them? Reporter Agnel Philip investigates.
Michael Chow, Arizona Republic

Streets built for speed

Major roads in Phoenix typically have a 40 mph speed limit. But engineers have designed them for vehicles to travel up to 10 mph faster.

This "design speed," according to the city's design manual, is "the speed determined for design which takes into account the physical features of a street influencing vehicle operation." 

Many Arizona cities do the same. Officials defend the practice, saying it's in line with federal guidelines and necessary for emergency vehicles to quickly respond to calls.

Safety experts said a road's design—wide straight lanes with clear views—sends a louder message to motorists than a speed limit sign: It's OK to drive faster than 40 mph.

"We do have to look at the width of our streets," Phoenix Councilwoman Debra Stark, District 3, said. "I think that just encourages people to speed."

Even the 40 mph limit doesn't guarantee pedestrians are safe. 

The driver who struck Jesus Mendoza was travelling at the posted speed limit of 40 mph, according to police. When Mendoza landed after the collision, the impact ruptured the right side of his brain, his daughter said.

A pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling 40 mph is killed about 45 percent of the time, according to a study by the AAA foundation. Other studies differ on the percentage, but all agree that pedestrian survival rates greatly increase when the vehicle is traveling just 10 mph slower.

Dan Gelinne, a researcher with the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said pedestrian signals can only do so much. At some point engineers have to look at street design. 

Some design changes are relatively cheap. For example, when re-striping roads, cities can take away lanes or "narrow" streets by adding bike lanes. They can also improve markings at pedestrian crossings.

Some activists have called for the city to narrow the lanes themselves, noting some streets have 12-foot lanes — the same width as interstate highways.

More costly improvements that tend to slow traffic include building raised medians.

City officials said they plan to narrow streets using transportation funding voters approved in 2015. The effort could get a boost if the City Council sets aside more money for capital improvements.

Officials said they couldn't provide a full list of projects because they are still being developed. But the areas where the city wants to eliminate travel lanes or narrow roadways weren't among the deadliest for pedestrians, according to The Republic's analysis. 

Activists like Sweat say calls for action have fallen on deaf ears before. For four years, a panel of nine Phoenix residents including Sweat proposed updated road design guidelines for the city. Sweat and six other members quit last year over resistance to their proposal from streets department staff, they said in a letter announcing their resignation.

The residents had proposed matching the street design to the city's speed limits.

But when the plan was adopted in October, that had been eliminated. The plan instead called for "appropriate" design speeds that provide for "safe multi-modal mobility while achieving the desired operation."

Officials also emphasized public awareness campaigns and increased speed-limit enforcement are key parts of their strategy to change pedestrian and driver behavior. They hope to copy the success of campaigns encouraging seat belt use and discouraging drunken driving.

Jim Burgett, Phoenix's assistant police chief, said his department has been given funding to hire more officers. He said he hopes more traffic enforcement officers can catch speeding motorists and encourage pedestrians who cross midblock to use marked crosswalks.

But he acknowledged enforcement will only do so much. “We’re not going to ticket our way out of this,” he said.

Stone, Councilman DiCiccio's chief of staff, said because of cuts to the police force in the wake of the Great Recession, drivers speed with "impunity" and pedestrians are taking greater risks.

"People have taken advantage of that in unfortunate ways," he said.

Sweat said he doesn't expect education and enforcement will be enough to reduce the deaths and injuries on Phoenix streets.

"They're relying on those because they are easy, not because they're effective," he said. "The solution is in engineering, and so we will not solve this until they come around on that."

Statewide struggle to lower deaths

Pedestrian deaths hit other cities in Arizona:

  • In Flagstaff, all but two deaths occurred outside an intersection. The city had the second highest fatality rate among cities with 10,000 or more people.
  • In Casa Grande, the next highest city, half of pedestrian injuries occurred midblock.
  • In Glendale, the Valley city with the most pedestrian deaths per capita, 46 people died after being hit outside intersections.

Flagstaff's large number of walkers relative to other Arizona cities explains its high fatality rate, Flagstaff's spokeswoman, Jessica Drum, said in a statement. Five people were seriously injured or killed on Butler Avenue near San Francisco Street in central Flagstaff. The city has since narrowed Butler Avenue. 

In Casa Grande, five people died on a midblock stretch of Florence Boulevard west of I-10, where the road is four lanes wide and the speed limit 45 mph. The city installed a HAWK signal in the area in 2017, spokesman Phil Burdick said in a statement.

Glendale's midblock collisions and deaths have remained stubbornly high in recent years.

Glendale installed a HAWK signal in 2015 on one of its highest crash corridors on Bethany Home Road, west of 59th Avenue. Before it was installed, two people had died and two others were seriously injured. Since then, none have died.

Debbie Albert, the city's traffic engineer, said Glendale is expanding awareness campaigns in addition to installing HAWK signals in high-crash areas. But there's no plan to reduce speeds through design changes.

Albert told The Republic she has noticed more people attempting to cross outside intersections.

“I don’t know why they are doing it,” Albert said. “Everybody makes their own decisions."

Tucson, the second-largest city in Arizona, averaged nearly one less death each year per 100,000 residents during the time period analyzed compared with Phoenix. But the city's death toll has risen for three straight years, driven in part by an increase in fatalities and collisions midblock.

Andy Bemis, Tucson's bicycle and pedestrian program coordinator, said in an email that the city is "finalizing a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan … to address pedestrian safety issues at our high crash locations.

"Speed management strategies are very likely to be addressed in the plan, but it is not finalized at this time and so I cannot comment on specific treatments or location," he said.

Is it possible to have no pedestrian fatalities?

Tempe has set the most ambitious pedestrian safety goal of any Arizona city: no serious injuries or fatalities on the city’s roadways within five years. It's part of a movement nationally known as “Vision Zero” that emphasizes road design changes.

“People have the right to move about their communities safely, just like we say people have a right to safe drinking water and healthy air to breathe,” said Leah Shahum, founder of Vision Zero Network, which consults with cities on pedestrian-safety plans.

The Vision Zero Network designates cities that:

  • Have a plan in place or in development to eliminate roadway fatalities.
  • Set a deadline for achieving the zero-fatality goal and commit to implement the plan.
  • Have buy-in from key city departments such as the mayor, streets department and law enforcement.
  • Hold regular task-force meetings on the plan.

Tempe already has far fewer pedestrian fatalities than other Valley cities: Its fatality rate is half of Phoenix’s.

City officials said that’s partly the result of two decades of investment.

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Julian Dresang, the city’s traffic engineer, said a transit sales tax in 1996 allowed the city to upgrade signals as well as pedestrian and bike trails. The next step is Vision Zero.

The presence of Arizona State University's Tempe campus also helps. Dresang said drivers know to expect pedestrians there and drive slower and more cautiously. Other parts of the city, especially south of the university, aren’t as pedestrian friendly, both in street design and driver behavior.

“Even though we might be doing an OK job compared to other cities, we feel like we’re not doing a good job until every single person gets home safely to their family,” Dresang said.

Phoenix doesn't have a specific goal to reduce pedestrian deaths, officials said. Langford, Phoenix's traffic engineering supervisor, said the city is evaluating Vision Zero and using many of its recommended solutions.

“I think it’s more just a branding than anything else,” he said Vision Zero.

New threats not captured in data

Among the most glaring gaps in state crash data is information on whether the driver or pedestrian was distracted at the time of the crash. Just 9 percent of the fatalities during the eight-year period analyzed had this information filled in for both the driver and pedestrian.

As a result, The Republic couldn’t analyze how increasing cellphone usage played into the rise in pedestrian fatalities.

Burgett, with Phoenix police, said most of the time, police have to rely on the driver or pedestrian admitting they were using their phones.

It’s also difficult to determine whether SUVs play a significant role in the pedestrian fatality increases during the past decade in Arizona. Researchers have hypothesized this may be the case because they are heavier and strike pedestrians higher than smaller vehicles, making collisions more deadly.

The state data doesn’t currently specify whether the vehicle involved in a crash is an SUV.

Alice Grossman, a policy analyst for the Eno Center for Transportation, said most cities still don’t know how many pedestrians cross in different areas or what improvements have been made in recent years.

But cities looking to lower their fatality numbers now should start with reducing speeds, she said.

“If you want to do one policy move that could vastly improve pedestrian safety, it would just be to make everybody go slower,” she said.

Are the streets in your neighborhood too dangerous to walk?

Reach Agnel Philip at aphilip@gannett.com or at 602-444-8129. Follow him on Twitter at @agnel88_philip.

Reach Bree Burkitt at bburkitt@republicmedia.com or at 602-444-8515. Follow her on Twitter at @breeburkitt.

A midblock pedestrian crosswalk is seen on Indian School Road near 20th Avenue in Phoenix.
A midblock pedestrian crosswalk is seen on Indian School Road near 20th Avenue in Phoenix. Michael Chow, Emmanuel Lozano/The Republic
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