The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) is developing a tracker to help young pedestrians report near collisions online.
WABA hopes the new tool will prevent crashes involving young people in the District. The pilot program will start in Wards 7 and 8, then expand to other areas.
“What better voice to be able to document that, than the young people themselves,” WABA Advocacy Director Jeremiah Lowery said.
The team recently applied for a grant to develop the tool.
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“That it’s not being documented right now, so we actually don’t know the extent of the near misses, that are occurring for young people in the city,” Lowery said.
According to the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT), there were 232 injuries involving cyclists and 3 deaths in 2022. For pedestrians, there were 18 deaths and 430 reported injuries.
Brittani Saxton, a mom and teacher said this tool is important in D.C. because many kids walk to school.
“As an adult, it’s definitely frightening, but we know what to do and how to handle that, but as a kiddo you may not know what to do." Saxton said. "And so, we just want to make sure everyone is keeping their eyes open and driving as safe as they can."
The D.C. Council is also trying to make going to school safer for children and unanimously passed the Safe Routes to School Act. This legislation will soon head to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office for final approval.
This bill directs DDOT to install upgrades at every D.C. public school. Some of these upgrades include raised crosswalks and curb extensions, speed humps by school entrances, and all-way stops or traffic lights at every intersection in a school zone.
In April, Lowery said he hopes to get about 100 community members together to get feedback on what they want this tool to look like. Then WABA will use the feedback to launch the site over the summer in Wards 7 and 8, before expanding the tracker to the rest of the city.
A team at Howard University is currently monitoring the near collisions in Wards 7 and 8. Once the tracker is developed, that team will help WABA analyze the collected data.
