��������

Professor Eric Dumbaugh has published a new article in the Journal of the American Planning Association titled “Land Use and Road Safety: Understanding the Persistence of Vulnerable Road User Deaths and Injuries in the United States.

The article explores why walking and biking have become increasingly dangerous in many American communities and argues that the problem cannot be understood simply as a matter of road design. Instead, it shows how land use patterns and development decisions help create unsafe conditions by placing homes, shops, restaurants, and other everyday destinations along high-speed roadways that were not designed to safely accommodate routine pedestrian activity.

Rather than treating traffic deaths and serious injuries as isolated transportation problems, the article presents them as a consequence of how communities are planned and built. In doing so, it offers a broader perspective on why the United States has struggled to improve safety for people walking and biking, even as many other developed countries have made greater progress.

The article highlights the importance of looking beyond individual streets or intersections and considering the larger relationship between transportation systems and land development. Its findings suggest that creating safer communities will require not only better roadway design, but also more thoughtful decisions about where and how growth occurs.

Land Use and Road Safety contributes to ongoing conversations in planning, urban design, and public policy about how to build communities that are both more livable and more safe.