Are things getting worse for pedestrians on bicyclists on Louisville streets?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Over 900 people have died on Louisville streets from traffic accidents since 2014. But are things getting worse for pedestrians and bicyclists?

If you’ve ever walked or biked down the street, you know how scary it can be when a car zooms by you. For some people, walking or biking is their only mode of transportation.

No matter how experienced someone may be, it just takes one wrong move for everything to go wrong.

In the first five months of 2022, nine pedestrians and one bicyclist were killed on the road. 16 pedestrians and five bicyclists were seriously injured.

That doesn’t include recent accidents like Nathan Greene, who was injured in a hit and run on June 30th.

“He had gone to work on his bike like he always did,” his girlfriend Hannah Nussbaum told WAVE news.

This time Greene didn’t come home. He suffered several injuries and is now in a coma.

He was hit on Poplar Level Road, a road that appears multiple times on Vision Zero Louisville’s Safety Report.

“We really are foucising on those big arterial roads like Broadway, like Preston Highway, like Dixie Highway, these bigger roads for our communities. And trying to build a complete street network through these corridors so people of all modes can use those corridors safely,” said Amanda Deatherage the Public Works Transportation Planner Supervisor.

Vision Zero aims to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries on the road. Deatherage says 13%% of Louisville’s roads has 70% of the fatal and serious injuries.

“We’re identifying those locations and prioritizing what those counter measures would be to engineer and design the roadways safer.”

Deatherage says things appear to be getting worse. She recommends that when you’re on the road, share it and always expect someone else to be there.

“People who ride their bikes experience aggression from drivers all the time. It’s not just necessarily aggression that we’re worried about, but it’s just inattention from drivers that don’t realize how massive and strong their car is compared to a human body on a 20 lb bike or a 30 lb bike,” said Nathan Pinney, a Fall City Community Bike Works board member

Pinney says cyclists getting bumped by a car is a regular occurrence. He says just a slight touch can have devastating results.

Nussbaum also has a message for drivers on the road.

“When you see a bike on the street and you see it as a nuisance or that person that you kind of want to get around quickly because they’re slowing down traffic, that person could have a family and a daughter that needs him and a partner that’s waiting for them at home.”

Vision Zero has a public task force that anyone can join. Their goal is to eliminate traffic deaths on Louisville streets by 2050.

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