Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Ciudades Sostenibles

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Housing
    • Sustainable development
    • Urban heritage
    • Smart cities
    • Metropolitan governance
    • Urban economics
    • Urban society
    • Cities LAB
    • Cities Network
  • Spanish

Getting Home Safely: A Toolkit to Design Safer Cities

August 4, 2015 por Erick Marin Leave a Comment

Este artículo está también disponible en / This post is also available in: Spanish


English | Español | Português

By the time you finish reading this sentence, a person will have been killed or injured in a road accident. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.24 million people die in traffic crashes globally, mostly pedestrians, and that number increases on an annual basis. Between 20 to 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability as a result of their injury. In the United States alone, traffic accidents account for an annual rate of 33,000 deaths, double the annual deaths due to murder.

Despite most of its countries having less road miles than say, India or China, Latin America ranks number one globally with the highest number of deaths from traffic accidents. In March of 2010, the region’s leaders joined the UN General Assembly in a resolution proclaiming 2011-2020 the decade of action for road safety. However, research has shown that the Latin America’s road safety record continues being the worst in the world, with over 130,000 fatalities and an additional 6 million people seriously injured every year in traffic related accidents.

When discussing the most pressing challenges in Latin America today, crime and violence are certainly considered by many as the main priority. Despite recurring shocking news headlines of violence in the region, traffic accidents kill more people in Latin America than violent crimes. The average number of homicides in Latin America (20 per 100,000) is lower than the average number of people killed in car accidents each year. To outsiders that are concerned in traveling to the region due to its high levels of violence, and to locals living in constant fear of being a victim of a crime, this may come as a surprise.

Various studies claim that human error is the main reason for over 90 percent of accidents on roads. However, drivers and other commuters that share the streets cannot bear all the responsibility for traffic crashes, especially when traffic designs are flawed.

 sao pauloSão Paulo, Brazil – June 2009. Source: ridetowork.org

 

How can we design safer cities?

Our growing cities need knowledgeable road engineers, urban planners and transportation specialists who are equipped to design safe environments that reduce the inherent risks in urban mobility. A good start to addressing this challenge is a new publication by the World Resources Institute (WRI), Cities Safer by Design, “a global reference guide to help cities save lives from traffic fatalities through improved street design and smart urban development”.

CitiesSaferbyDesignCover (2)

This toolkit was recently launched during a panel session that included experts from the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, Brookings Institution, the World Bank, and the IDB’s Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative (ESCI). Panelists explored how cities can implement and scale up safer designs that result in better quality of life for all users of urban transportation. The presenters and the audience discussed the various components needed to make a city’s design safer, including the creation of more compact, connected cities, which decrease the need to drive, and simultaneously prioritize bicycling and walking. WRI’s Ben Welle noted, for example, that a dense, walkable city like Tokyo has traffic fatality rates of 1.3 per 100,000, while a sprawled out city like Atlanta has a fatality rate of 9.7 per 100,000.

WRI panel 1World Resources Institute, July 2015

 

Some of the guiding principles in the publication include: reducing vehicle speeds, installing traffic calming measures, designing smaller block size and narrower streets, raising pedestrian crossings and adding median refuge islands. The latter, for example, provide pedestrians a safe place when crossing the road.

Large Latin American cities have already begun to implement these types of advanced safety designs into their urban traffic plans. Mexico City rebuilt its Avenida Eduardo Molina as a “complete street”, featuring exclusive transit, bike lanes and a central median for pedestrians. Bogota reduced cyclists’ deaths by over 45 percent between 2003 and 2013, by adding more than 100km (62miles) of dedicated bikeways while doubling the use of bicycles in daily trips. Costa Rica, a country where pedestrian deaths are the third most common cause of fatalities on roads, has carried out awareness campaigns to attempt to curb these incidents, such as the yellow hearts that designate where a pedestrian was run over by a vehicle, a sight much too common throughout San Jose.

 

Campa–a para prevenir los atropellos MOpt/ transito hatillo 6San Jose, Costa Rica. Source: nacion.com 2004

Intermediate cities in the region, growing at increasingly faster rates, need to provide more than just transportation. Public transit is no longer about innovative ways to transport large amounts of people at faster speeds, but requires creating better access to the different mobility options while designing more efficient safety measures. As ESCI’s Ellis J. Juan explained, emerging cities in Latin America need to transition away from the idealization of vehicle ownership, due to the fact that some 90 million cars are expected to be on the roads by 2025, and users will not be able to share such congested and dangerous roads.

Unsafe roads do not only account for tragic loss of life, but they come with high social and economic costs as well. IDB studies have found that the region loses as much as 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product a year due to road crashes. Additionally, the high dependency of vehicles is also associated to a broad range of health concerns including obesity, diabetes and heart disease. AS WRI’s Claudia Adriazola highlights: “an environment that is friendly to walking, biking and public transport will improve air quality, and encourage physical activity and economic development by encouraging more street-level commercial activities. Better design can create safer, healthier, more vibrant cities”.

We know that safer cities make for more modern, competitive cities. Yet to create safer cities we must redesign our roads and methods of transportation, so that even the worst of drivers can make it home safely.

 

Could driverless cars revolutionize the way we move around in cities and reduce the number of traffic accidents worldwide?

Join Dr. Ryan C. C. Chin, Managing Director at MIT’s Media LAB, who will present on autonomous vehicles at Demand Solutions: Ideas for Improving Lives in Cities on September 29th. Register HERE

 


Filed Under: ENGLISH, Uncategorized Tagged With: Latin America, mobility, road accidents, traffic accidents, transportation. road safety, urban design, World Resources Institute

Erick Marin

Erick worked at the IDB's Cities Network, in the Housing and Urban Development Division of the Bank, supporting the strategic alliances and external relations of the Division. Previously, he served in the Foreign Service of Costa Rica as Counselor at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Washington, D.C. Erick holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Elon University in North Carolina, a master's degree in International Relations from American University in Washington, D.C. and a Certificate in Multilateral Governance from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland. Originally from San Jose, Costa Rica, Erick has lived in El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Tajikistan, Germany and Vietnam.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

Description

Este es el blog de la División de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD) del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Súmate a la conversación sobre cómo mejorar la sostenibilidad y calidad de vida en ciudades de América Latina y el Caribe.

Search

Recent Posts

  • Cities on the Brink: How to Protect Latin America from Extreme Heat and Wildfires
  • São Luís: Pioneering Interventions Transform The Historic Center Into An Inclusive And Accessible Space
  • Strengthening Cooperation for Climate-Resilient Urban Futures
  • Unlocking the Power of Blue Carbon in Urban Areas: Protecting Mangroves and Financing Their Conservation
  • Urban empowerment in action: women from vulnerable communities earn certification in civil construction

¡Síguenos en nuestras redes!

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

    Blog posts written by Bank employees:

    Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


    For blogs written by external parties:

    For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

    The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

    Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



    Privacy Policy

    Derechos de autor © 2025 · Magazine Pro en Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

    Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

    Aviso Legal

    Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

    facebook
    twitter
    youtube
    This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser.
    To learn more about cookies, click here
    X
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT