Florida was home to six of the top 20 deadliest cities for pedestrians in the country, with Orlando ranked at 18. The study by Smart Growth America found that between 2018 and 2022, Black pedestrians were twice as likely to be killed by a vehicle when crossing traffic. Native Americans were four times as likely.
The disproportionate deaths observed in Florida are likely due to structural racism,and the decisions to place highly trafficked thoroughfares through low-income neighborhoods where minorities were living in the 1950s, the study showed.
“You could go to any region and look at the roadways and the areas designed after 1950. And those are the most dangerous roads, without exception,” said Beth Osborne, vice president of transportation at Smart Growth America. “Everything developed after we started building interstates are filled with wide, fast, straight, dangerous roadways for pedestrians and for nonpedestrians. The high-speed roads and complicated areas lead to crashes that kill people inside of cars too.”
The Orlando, Kissimmee, and Sanford areas were grouped together and previously held the No. 1 spot in previous studies in 2009, 2011, 2014, and 2021. Its 2024 spot at 18 isn’t a sign of progress, but rather an indication of how quickly other areas are worsening, Osborne said.
“It has dropped in the rankings, not because it has gotten safer. In fact, it has gotten more dangerous. But the other cities have gotten even more dangerous faster than Orlando,” she said.
Smart Growth’s “Dangerous Designs” study analyzed 101 of the country’s largest metro areas using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It found that 82% have seen more pedestrian casualties.
“This is something of epidemic proportions,” said Calvin Gladney, president of Smart Growth America. “All of these problems… We should just not accept this as a part of American culture, that people are dying, people are being injured, just while walking.”
Orlando, Kissimmee, and Sanford were deemed among the most unsafe in the country, but several other Florida cities ranked as more deadly than the Central Florida cities including Deltona-Daytona-Ormond beaches, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Palm Bay, Melbourne, Titusville, Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Jacksonville
While Orlando is among the deadliest cities, it's making progress with better future planning -- by identifying which types of roads are best for areas with pedestrians, Gladney said.
“But their progress is really undoing those cultural choices, and undoing some of those structural challenges that lend itself to disproportionate problems in the south,” he said.
Between 2018 and 2022, the Orlando, Kissimmee, and Sanford areas had 437 people killed while walking or 3.26 per 100,000 people. The Deltona-Daytona-Ormond Beach area scored highest in the state on the list at number 5.
The study suggests changing roadways to include crosswalks that would force drivers to slow down or stop when approaching intersections instead of quickly rolling through – which has been a historical conflict point for pedestrians. Additionally, it suggests shortening the crossing distances pedestrians might walk.
Smart Growth America said the country is “ seeing incremental progress across the U.S. in communities courageous enough to choose safety, accessibility, and dignity to guide their transportation systems.”
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