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McDavid Announces Pedestrian Saftey Task Force

  Columbia Mayor Bob McDavid announced Friday morning a task force will be analyzing and suggesting ways to cut down on the number of pedestrian and motorist accidents. McDavid appointed city council members Clyde Ruffin (Ward 1) and Ian Thomas (Ward 4) to head the task force.

The call for a task force comes after four pedestrians have been killed as a result of motorist crashes and four others have been seriously injured since October of 2014. These recent crashes have occurred on some of the busiest streets in Columbia including Providence Road and College Avenue.

City councilman Ian Thomas says there are four steps that can help the task force organize and plan. Thomas calls these steps “The 4 E’s:”

·       EVALUATION - Gather the data and understand the problem.

·       EDUCATION - Make sure people understand the rules and their responsibilities. Create educational materials and programs for the city.

·       ENFORCEMENT - What are the rules we have, are they working and do we want to change the rules? Also look at how city speed limits and pedestrian habits play into these accidents.

·       ENGINEERING - Reengineering roads is expensive but in many ways it’s the most effective option. Subtle changes like sizes of roads or adding medians can make dramatic differences.

Thomas says the task force will look at other university towns like Lawrence, KS, Ames, IA and Champaign-Urbana, IL to see how they are handling these types of issues. He said although they aren’t too comparable, New York City is a great city to model after because they have successfully cut down on pedestrian accidents over the past few years.

In all of the aforementioned cities, jaywalking is seen as just another part of college towns. Mayor McDavid was asked if Columbia would see more tickets written for jaywalking. He doesn’t see it as a big part of changing these types of pedestrian-motorists accidents.

“We need to look at educating motorists to be careful about pedestrians and we need to encourage pedestrians to be wary of motorists. There are distracted drivers, there are impaired drivers, there are distracted pedestrians, there are impaired pedestrians. Just as you need to educate drivers to drive defensively, we as pedestrians need to walk defensively.”

The task force will make a resolution on May 18th and will then have 6-12 months to deliver a report and make recommendations to City Council. The task force is inclusive and citizens are encouraged to step forward and give their input. 

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