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Walking is great for your health and helps the environment.

It can also be extremely hazardous in the Houston region, where car-oriented development and wide, busy commercial strips create a hostile environment for foot traffic.

Houston ranked eighth on a new list of the most dangerous urban areas for pedestrians.

And the hundreds of deaths and injuries to pedestrians can’t all be written off as mere accidents, according to a report released Monday by two advocacy groups. Poor roadway design and lack of safety features like sidewalks and medians contribute to the death rate.

On Airline Drive, for example, up to 40,000 people arrive every weekend to visit flea markets that line both sides of the road. The neighborhood’s management district is gearing up to spend $2.9 million on pedestrian improvements, including two new, signalized crosswalks on Airline, as well as sidewalks on nearby streets that are heavily used by local residents.

“It’s just sort of hard to go down the road when there’s an open ditch,” said Teri Koerth, executive director of the Airline Improvement District. “There are quite a few people who are riding bicycles and walking, and it’s just really important that we have sidewalks for them to get from their home to the grocery store and other things.”

But local transportation advocates say more must be done. Harris County, for example, has a policy of not installing sidewalks when it builds a new road, unless a group or city provides the extra money.

“It’s an expense that doesn’t have to do with transportation,” said Mark Seegers, a spokesman for Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia. “The county does not do sidewalks; it’s not what gets cars from point A to point B.”

Southern trend

That approach irks Robin Holzer of the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition, who calls it outdated and short-sighted.

“The people on foot and bike are trying to go to the same schools and restaurants and shops as people in cars are going to,” Holzer said.

The statistics are startling. Almost 5,000 pedestrians die in the U.S. after being hit by cars every year, according to the report by Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, two nonprofit, national coalitions that promote more efficient and equitable transportation policies.

All of the Top 10 dangerous cities for pedestrians are in the South, where new growth after World War II created development patterns that favor cars over pedestrians.

In the eight-county region that includes Houston, an average of 100 pedestrians died every year between 2003 and 2008, and an average of 1,175 were injured, mostly within Harris County, according to statistics compiled by the Texas Department of Transportation.

Deadly ‘arterials’

The report focused especially on high-capacity, high-speed roads called “arterials.” More than half of all pedestrian deaths occur on these wide roads, often as people are trying to cross to reach retail shops or bus stops. Low-income residents, children and the elderly are at greater risk, the report stated, because they are less likely to own cars or drive and often live in apartments along arterials.

“Even if you’re crossing at a signaled intersection it can sometimes be hard to get across five or seven lanes,” said Gina Mitteco, the pedestrian and bicyclist coordinator for the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

The report calls for communities to adopt better road design standards that also include the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists, not just cars.

Sidewalks are the most obvious, said Holzer, but others include adjustments to the timing of crosswalk signals to give all walkers enough time to get safely across a road, and medians on wide roads to give walkers a “safe refuge” in the middle.

She noted that the city of Houston has begun to focus on some of these solutions. Upper Kirby, once a notorious spot for pedestrians, is being reconstructed with a median in the middle and wider sidewalks on the sides.

The city’s newer traffic signals have countdown warning lights and sound signals for pedestrians, said Jeff Weatherford, Houston’s interim deputy director for traffic and transportation.

Transportation for America is calling for policy changes to reduce pedestrian risk. One proposal is for federal standards that would take into account all road users, not just vehicles. Some legislation has been introduced that would tie those standards to federal road dollars that go to states