Unhealthy Streets Cause Death and Injury

If the total number of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians injured on roads in northeastern Illinois in 2003 (88,724) were to populate a city, it would be the tenth-largest city in the state. This is as embarrassing as it is tragic, and this statistic alone supports the unhealthy diagnosis. But there’s more: In the year 2003, 7,311 men, women and children were reported injured while walking or cycling on the streets of Chicagoland, and 168 were killed. These numbers have remained roughly constant since the mid ’90s. Bicycle and pedestrian fatalities make up almost 25% of all traffic-related deaths in the region. The table below tells the story from the year 2003 for the United States, Illinois, northeastern Illinois, and the City of Chicago.

The Crash Facts

What's happening in Chicagoland is not unique. Car and truck crashes kill more than 40,000 people and injure several million in America each year. One in ninety Americans will meet his or her death in a road crash, and one in three will suffer serious injury. Motor vehicle crashes are the number-one killer of children and young adults into their 30s.

The figure below shows the distribution of population and reported bicyclist and pedestrian injuries and fatal crashes in Northeastern Illinois by age. Notice that no age range stands out as overrepresented in terms of crashes, except in the case of children ages 5 to 14. About 15% of the population of NE Illinois is made up of children ages 5 to 14, yet they make up over 27% of bicycle or pedestrian injuries or fatalities.

Distributions of Population and Reported Bicyclist or Pedestrian Injuries and Fatal Crashes, Northeastern Illinois, 2000, by Age

Pedestrian and bicyclist injury rates for youth vary wildly in different parts of the region. The worst areas are more than seven times worse than the best areas. And the worst areas are almost always low-income and minority areas. Pedestrian and bicycle crashes disproportionately affect poor and minority populations.

The City of Chicago has a much higher child and youth pedestrian hospitalization rate than the suburbs. Forty-nine per 100,000 youths annually are hospitalized, compared to 18.7 in suburban Cook County. Within the city of Chicago, the highest rates for child and adolescent bicyclist and pedestrian hospitalizations all occur in African-American neighborhoods. The highest rates are in East and West Garfield Park, Washington Park, Englewood, Woodlawn, North Lawndale, Austin, and the Near West Side.