City: Collisions Involving Pedestrians Trending Below County Average, But Cause for Concern

The city is trending below the county average and that of other similar jurisdictions for collisions involving pedestrians, but there is still cause for concern, a city official said.

“While this downward trend in pedestrian collisions through 2020 is promising, we continue to be concerned with the number of pedestrian collisions resulting in serious injuries and fatalities in Pasadena, wrote Director of Transportation, Laura Rubio-Cornejo in a memo to Interim City Manager Cynthia Kurtz.

Collisions involving pedestrians in Pasadena are trending downward at a faster rate than the five-year trends for several nearby cities.

Trends in Pasadena were compared to Long Beach, Santa Monica, Pomona, Glendale, Torrance and Burbank.

Locally, pedestrians continue to make up a disproportionate number of fatalities resulting from traffic collisions in Pasadena. Over the past 10 years, pedestrians have accounted for 5% of the total number of collisions in the City, but pedestrians make up 37% of the total number of fatalities resulting from traffic collisions.

In 2021 alone, there were eight fatalities resulting from traffic collisions in Pasadena. Six of those eight fatalities were pedestrian fatalities.

Nationally, the number of pedestrian fatalities continues to rise according to the memo.

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), in the past decade the number of pedestrians struck and killed in motor vehicle crashes increased by more than 50%. In 2009, there were 4,109 pedestrians stuck and killed on the nation’s roadways.

In 2019, the number increased to 6,205 nationally.

“City staff continues to make pedestrian safety a top priority in all aspects of work, from the response to traffic investigations, to the identification and implementation of projects in the Capital Improvement Program and the development of education and awareness programs,” Rubio-Cornejo wrote. “While relative to comparable agencies, the City has experienced a greater downward trend in pedestrian collisions, the number of pedestrian fatalities in 2021 continues to be of concern. DOT is committed to maintaining a focus on pedestrian safety through all of our planning, engineering, and outreach efforts.”