Traffic flows up and down Interstate 77 as the Columbia, S.C., skyline is seen in the distance on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. (File/Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Charleston and Columbia are among the nation’s 15 deadliest metro areas for pedestrians, according to a recent report.
The Charleston-North Charleston metro region comes in at ninth, while Columbia is tied for 12th in the latest report titled Dangerous by Design, published by the urban planning nonprofit Smart Growth America.
Across the country, pedestrian deaths increased 75% from 2010 to 2022, with cities across the Southeast and Southwest still the deadliest.
In 2022, 7,522 people nationwide were fatally struck while walking, a 40-year high, according to the 2024 report by the Washington, D.C., nonprofit.
“This epidemic continues to grow worse because our nation’s streets are dangerous by design, designed primarily to move cars quickly at the expense of keeping everyone safe,” the report reads.
Memphis took the top spot in the ranking of 101 metro areas, with 5.14 deaths per 100,000 residents. (The 2024 rankings are based on a yearly average for the five-year period from 2018 to 2022.)
Charleston and Columbia shared very similar fatality numbers:
• In the Charleston metro area, 147 pedestrians were killed over the five-year period, a rate of 3.66 per 100,000 people. That’s up from 97 pedestrians fatally struck in the prior five years.
• In Columbia, 144 were killed, a rate of 3.46. That’s up from 94 pedestrians killed from 2013 through 2017.
Three other South Carolina metro areas ranked in the top 50.
The Greenville-Anderson area came in at 28th, while the Augusta, Georgia, area that includes parts of Aiken County ranked 44th; and the Charlotte metro area that extends into South Carolina came in at 47th.
By comparison, Atlanta ranked 29th; the Washington, D.C., metro area that extends into Virginia and Maryland tied with Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at 59th; San Francisco 63rd; and the New York City metro area — which includes nearby parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania — tied with Chicago at 73rd.
The report praised Detroit, Michigan (ranked 53rd), and Buffalo, New York (tied with Boston at 94th), for bringing down pedestrian deaths through the use of speed bumps and more bike and pedestrian friendly intersections, among other things.
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