Planning Associate Professor Arlie Adkins Discusses Pedestrian Fatalities in Arizona NPR Feature

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Arlie Adkins, associate professor of urban planning in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona, provides insight on the increase in pre-pandemic pedestrian deaths in an August 28, 2020 Arizona Public Media (NPR) story in The Buzz titled "Revisiting the danger to pedestrians in Tucson."

Tucson, "like others," says the article, "has seen a steady rise in people struck and killed while walking, though the trends may be shifting amid the pandemic." Nationwide, according to a report from the Governor's Highway Safety Administration, pedestrian fatalities increased 35 percent between 2008 and 2017.

"So far this year pedestrian deaths are down," the article continues, "most likely due to fewer cars on the road during the height of the pandemic."

Adkins, according to the article, says, "there don't appear to be simple answers for why more pedestrians are being struck and killed. And that it's probably more useful to think of it as an interaction of different factors like a general increase in driving over the past couple of years, as well as a renewed interest in biking and walking for some people."

Read or listen to the full The Buzz story.

Adkins, who joined CAPLA in 2013, researches the interconnectedness of transportation equity, affordable housing and public health. He teaches transportation planning, planning theory and the Master of Science in Urban Planning master’s capstone studio, and also holds a joint appointment in the Health Promotion Sciences Department at the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Akins earned his PhD in Urban Studies from Portland State University and Master’s in City Planning from University of California, Berkeley.

Header image courtesy AZPM.