The intersection of West Fourth Street and Broadhead Avenue is one of the busiest in South Bethlehem. The Brown and White stood at this intersection for ten minutes on Oct. 29 to look at pedestrians crossing the street. According to observations from 5 p.m. to 5:10 p.m., a pedestrian crossing this intersection waited for the light to turn green for up to a minute and a half, and crossing West Fourth Street at a crosswalk without a stop sign took up to four minutes.
Extended wait times at crosswalks are linked to increased fatal car crashes, as pedestrians may grow impatient and attempt to cross before it’s safe. A 2022 study from the Journal of Transportation Engineering found that longer signal delays can lead to risky behavior and increase the potential for dangerous interactions between pedestrians and vehicles.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the percentage of fatal crashes that involve a pedestrian death rose from 13% to 17% between 2011 and 2021. In 2021, 60,577 pedestrians in the U.S. were injured in traffic crashes.
There have been 380 crashes involving a pedestrian and a car in Bethlehem since 2012. In 37 of those cases, the pedestrian was seriously injured or killed, according to a Pennsylvania report.
Scott Slingerland, the executive director of the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, said it’s important to have safer streets for pedestrians because rising death rates from car crashes can prevent people from walking.
Pennsylvania’s Title 75 requires drivers to yield to pedestrians when they’ve already started crossing the crosswalk. In cases where there’s no stop sign or intersection, Slingerland said it’s up to the pedestrian to decide if the driver is a reasonable distance away to stop.
LUPD Chief Jason Schiffer said this law is why pedestrian visibility and speeding are such important issues in Bethlehem.
“We want to do everything we can to reduce the conflicts between cars, pedestrians and bikes,” Schiffer said. “Traffic calming measures and very clearly marked crosswalks are a good place to start.”
Schiffer said Packer Avenue has high rates of speeding, which is dangerous to the high volume of Lehigh University foot traffic. LUPD has placed pedestrian crossing signs along the street to attempt to slow down drivers and alleviate the issue.
One method Schiffer advocates to reduce traffic speeds and increase pedestrian visibility is bumpouts — also known as curb extensions. Bumpouts narrow roadways at intersections and shorten the length of the crosswalk to make pedestrians more visible to drivers and cars more visible to pedestrians.
The Coalition for Appropriate Transportation advocates for these bumpouts and ADA-compliant ramps, Slingerland said.
Currently, the curbs at many crosswalks in Bethlehem exceed 3 inches tall or do not include ramps, which makes it challenging for people who use a wheelchair or have other disabilities to cross the street. According to ADA compliance rules, this is legal if the curbs were constructed before 1996.
Slingerland said other traffic calming methods could include narrowing roads — which would signal drivers to go slower — and building speed bumps in pedestrian-heavy areas where the speed limit is 25 mph or lower.
Slingerland said the Coalition for Appropriate Transportation attends Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Lehigh Valley Transportation meetings to advocate for these safety improvements. The organization also works with the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority to improve public transportation reliability.
He said he fights for pedestrians’ safety to ensure they are not an afterthought in the urban planning process.
“We try to be a voice so that (state departments) prioritize pedestrians and they prioritize bicyclists, as the alternative to designing a big, wide, fast road that minimizes pedestrians and bicyclists,” Slingerland said.
Several departments within the City of Bethlehem are also working to make the city more walkable, said Will Audelo, Bethlehem Lieutenant for Traffic and School Safety.
A 10 million dollar Safer Streets for All grant was issued to Bethlehem by the federal government in December 2023 to improve crosswalks, bike lanes and curbs along West Broad Street.
Although pedestrians are the party at greater risk while crossing the street, Audelo said it’s also pedestrians’ responsibility to behave safely. He said drivers in Bethlehem complain about pedestrians recklessly walking into the street and jaywalking.
Slingerland also said sometimes a driver’s speed makes it challenging for them to slow down, even when a pedestrian is a reasonable distance away.
“I guess people are entitled to feel defensive, but at the end of the day, everybody has the same goal,” Audelo said. “It’s your responsibility, whether you’re a pedestrian or a driver, to obey the law. If you do so, we’ve made our community safer.”
The Bethlehem Police Department receives $5,000 annually from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for pedestrian enforcement. Audelo said the department employs decoy walkers to use popular crosswalks local officers have identified as dangerous. When there is a driver not obeying crosswalk laws, the officer is then able to issue a ticket.
Audelo said conflicts between drivers and pedestrians have increased as Bethlehem’s population has grown.
He said increased vehicle traffic has contributed to people driving at elevated speeds, which increases the likelihood of car accidents.
Schiffer said everyone has been both a driver and a pedestrian, so creating a safe, respectful environment and reducing conflicts is in everybody’s best interest.
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