Sandwiched between buzzing trucks on the parkway east and cars hitting the brakes at the Armstrong Tunnel traffic signal, cyclists gathered around a white “ghost bike” in the Second Avenue parking lot on Wednesday evening.
They mounted their bikes for the Ride of Silence, an annual international day of remembrance to honor cyclists killed by motorists and raise bike safety awareness. Robin Woods, of the Women at Work Cycling Club, organized the event and led the cyclists on a 10 mile loop through downtown — past the spot where cyclist James Mills was struck and killed by a truck in April — and into the North Side and Strip District.
“Since Covid, everything has changed,” Woods said. “The motorists have created their own speed limits within the city of Pittsburgh and there's no one held accountable. But I love riding on the roads. I like teaching safe cycling. And I plan to continue.”
Pedestrian and cyclist deaths on roads across the country have surged since the pandemic. The Government Highway Administration estimated a 14% rise in pedestrian deaths since 2019, according to their most recent report published in February.
And they’re making up a greater share of traffic-related deaths. The same number of motorists died on the roads in Allegheny County as non-motorists last year, according to recently released data from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
Last year, 23 people died on the streets of Pittsburgh. So far in 2024, nine people including a cyclist and a pedestrian have been killed on the roads, according to the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure.
This April, the City of Pittsburgh committed to “Vision Zero,” a traffic safety plan with a goal of zero traffic fatalities. Since then, they’ve rolled out projects to slow down vehicles on a number of residential streets, such as adding speed humps to Tripoli Street on the North Side. But local advocates and government officials see these measures as a start of a patched road to a safe street system.
“The transportation industry's approach to safety has been if we design roads safe enough, then they will be safe and people will be safe,” said Angie Martinez, assistant director of the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure. “And we know that it's not just the roadway design, it's also the behavior. It's also the enforcement. It's also all these and many other things.”
A deadly collision
Behind the deaths is a collision of heavy foot and vehicle traffic, poorly timed traffic signals, a lack of sidewalks, use of cell phones and distracted driving, vehicle speeding, and reduced enforcement, according to recent research.
The bulked-up design of cars and trucks have turned them into deadlier weapons for pedestrians. “We've seen a big shift in the auto market coming out of the last recession,” said Angie Schmitt, author of Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America.
The top three selling cars in the U.S. last year were pick-up trucks — the Ford F-Series, the Chevy Silverado and the Ram pickup, according to Car and Driver. These trucks with high front grilles are 45% more likely to kill pedestrians in a crash than smaller vehicles, according to recent research from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety.
“Most of those cars have a 55 inch tall grille,” Schmitt said. “I'm an adult woman who is medium to tall and they come up to about my chin now. Those bigger cars are hitting pedestrians higher on the body with a lot of force. And they also have blind spots that contribute to crashes.”
A vision of safety
Crashes in Pittsburgh concentrate — 76% of traffic fatalities occur on only one-tenth of the city’s roadways. Known as the “High Injury Network,” these hot spots include Grant Street, Baum Boulevard and Frankstown Road. Martinez said these areas are the agency’s top priorities for upcoming traffic calming and road safety updates.
Most crashes happen at intersections. Pittsburgh has over 600 intersections with traffic signals, many of which are out of date, according to Martinez. “Every time we replace a signal, we are getting a safety benefit.” Martinez said they saw a 33% decrease in crashes at intersections where they updated their signal equipment.
For a beacon of safe streets, Pittsburgh can look east. The city of Hoboken has gone seven straight years without a traffic-related death, after committing to “Vision Zero.” They restriped crosswalks, retimed traffic signals and improved visibility by restricting parking near hundreds of intersections, among other safety measures.
Some federal help to combat the rise in pedestrian deaths came last year when the National Highway Safety Administration gave out $1.7 billion in grants to local governments for these types of safety improvements through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program.
But beyond public infrastructure improvements, communities — like the one formed for the Ride of Silence — can feed safety. A recent study of mid-sized cities found that cities with high levels of cyclists “were significantly associated with better overall road outcomes.”
Eric Boerer, the advocacy director at Bike Pittsburgh, scanned the growing peloton before the Ride of Silence set off. “The more people that are riding bikes, the safer it is for everybody. Drivers get used to seeing bicyclists. They know what to do when they see one. But also creating a bike culture helps get other people into choosing to ride a bike.”
