Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Phoenix

Phoenix Dithers on Traffic Safety While People Die

Traffic collisions claim a shocking number of lives in Phoenix.

Earlier this spring, 10 pedestrians were killed across metro Phoenix in a single week.

Phoenix had the third-highest per-capita pedestrian fatality rate of any major U.S. city in 2016, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But that hasn't prompted city leaders to take action.

Phoenix approved a complete streets policy in 2014 that has proven toothless. Under Mayor Greg Stanton, who announced this week he's leaving the position to run for Congress, city officials have sat on their hands without translating statements about designing streets for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders into tangible changes. Since the policy was enacted, drivers have killed 300 pedestrians across the metro region.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, local advocates mounted a campaign to put more weight behind the city's complete streets policies. Volunteers on the city's Complete Streets Advisory Board have drafted more detailed guidance, with specifications drawn from the National Association of City Transportation Officials' Urban Street Design Guide.

The new guidelines state, for instance, that all streets not in residential or industrial areas should have bike lanes by default, and that street corners should be designed with tight curves to slow turning motorists. By getting the City Council's official endorsement of these guidelines, advocates hope to increase pressure on Phoenix's recalcitrant Streets Transportation Department to change its ways.

But the City Council, which had previously promised to take up the issue, recently took the measure off its agenda, with the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee declining to take up the new design standards until at least August.

"It’s extremely disappointing," said Conor Descheemaker, a local resident who helped create the guide.

Emiko Atherton, director of the National Complete Streets Coalition, said the city's reluctance to change its street design practices will cost people their lives. "We know how to solve this. We know how to make roads safer. For every day that they choose to delay were putting people’s lives at risk," she said. "The Phoenix City Council is choosing to ignore this blatantly."

The City Council is facing pressure from the Streets Transportation Department, which has proposed 10 changes to the document that Descheemaker describes as "antithetical to the purpose of complete streets."

The agency objects, for example, to a passage that directs them to implement street designs that align with the posted the speed limit.

Those changes eviscerate the "entire intent" of the complete streets policy, said Descheemaker.

Descheemaker and other members of the advisory board say the guidelines have also been getting pushback from influential local developers who build sprawling subdivisions. While developers participated in the 18-month process of developing the guidelines, some objected to requirements that streets be laid out in a walkable grid, instead of the disconnected style of suburban cul-de-sacs.

Advocates like advisory board member Sean Sweat also see a pattern of discrimination against low-income residents. Because streets are so dreadful for pedestrians in Phoenix, the victims of dangerous walking conditions are mostly poor people. City officials aren't responsive to the risks they face.

"So many just drive everywhere," Sweat said. "When someone dies walking, I don’t think they empathize as much with them."

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Friday Headlines: Trump’s Revenge Tour Now Includes a Stop at Penn Station

U.S. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy is so eager to own the libs at the MTA that he's now taken himself hostage. Plus other news.

April 18, 2025

Exclusive: Cops Writing 15% of Their Red Light Tix to Cyclists, Who are Just 2% of Road Users

We received data from a Freedom of Information Law request showing that the NYPD is intent on writing red-light tickets to the lightest, slowest-moving vehicles instead of doubling-down on enforcement against 3,000-pound-plus killing machines.

April 18, 2025

OPINION: DOT’s Argument Against Universal Daylighting Has a Fatal Flaw

Hydrant zones and bus stops are not a suitable stand-in for universal daylighting — yet DOT is using them to argue against safety, our contributors write.

April 18, 2025

Helicopter Deaths, Fast and Slow

Choppers harm us. Suddenly but also steadily.

April 17, 2025

The Dave Colon Challenge: Brad Lander Has Fought The Battles

The City Comptroller and would-be mayor becomes the first candidate to take Streetsblog's quadrennial challenge.

April 17, 2025
See all posts