Pedestrian safety everyone’s kuleana

Old habits die hard and even the newer habits are tough to overcome. Laws now on the books aim to suppress the urge of drivers to watch their cellphones instead of the road, or to succumb to innumerable other distractions. Tickets have been issued against phone-chat and texting offenders, but this new habit persists.

Now a distressing record of pedestrian deaths indicates the same lapse in attention among some pedestrians. That inattention is another bad habit with potentially fatal consequences. And it’s one that ultimately only personal resolve will fix.

Oahu has battled a high rate of pedestrian fatalities for several years. New policies such as "Complete Streets" are now guiding transportation planning toward better accommodations on the road for walkers and cyclists as well as motorists. That’s an excellent step, but as the latest Honolulu statistics demonstrate, this problem has many dimensions.

Those figures point to 15 pedestrian deaths so far this year, and they position Oahu to surpass the last high point: 20 fatalities, record-ed for 2008.

Statewide, 21 pedestrian-related fatalities have occurred, well over the 12 tallied at this point in 2012.

In response to the trend, police officials have announced a plan to increase patrols at intersections dominated by foot traffic. This will boost enforcement of the law restricting drivers from entering crosswalks when pedestrians are on their side of the road.

Advocates for pedestrian safety, including AARP Hawaii, believe this will help — but only for the limited period of the campaign. That’s why there must be a more sustained effort of public messaging about the problem, something that might even scare people straight.

Various alternative traffic-management strategies also should be pursued. The expansion earlier this year of one method — a crosswalk pattern that traffic engineers call the "Barnes dance," "diagonal crossing," "pedestrian scramble" or various other names — looks promising for Waikiki and could apply in select areas downtown or other points with heavy foot traffic.

It’s a pedestrian crossing system that is gaining favor in cities that, like Honolulu, need to tip the traffic-safety scales a bit in the pedestrian’s favor. In April, the city introduced the pattern at Kalakaua and Royal Hawaiian avenues, allowing pedestrians to cross the street at the same time in every direction when they have the light and all vehicles must stop. During the alternating cycles, only vehicular traffic can move. A new diagonal crosswalk cuts through the middle of the intersection for additional guidance.

But even that redesign won’t work everywhere, especially where pedestrian traffic is intermittent, and it could be counterproductive in some spots. It compels both drivers and pedestrians to wait through longer cycles while the other group has the right-of-way. Such a crossing in the wrong spot could too frequently tempt the impatient to ignore the signal.

The city is due within a few weeks to unveil more ideas identified through a Waikiki traffic study commissioned last year, But while it’s critical that various approaches be tried where appropriate, paired with enforcement and public awareness campaigns, ultimately the responsibility for making all of this work falls most heavily on all of us who venture into the streets, on foot or behind the wheel.

The attraction of multitasking — using cellphones, listening to music on headphones — is that it generally makes use of otherwise idle moments. But when people are approaching intersections on busy city streets, the plain fact is that there’s no better use for time than to turn attention away from the smart phone or music and toward the traffic around you.

"Look both ways before crossing the street," it turns out, is still the best advice.