The Texas Department of Transportation has launched a new statewide safety campaign aimed at reducing the rising number of fatal crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists.
But while state officials say they hope to raise awareness of traffic safety laws through the campaign, funding for infrastructure projects favoring drivers dwarfs funding for work that would improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists in Gregg and Smith counties by more than $500 million.
TxDOT’s “Be Safe. Drive Smart” campaign, which began this past week, encourages drivers, walkers and bicyclists alike to follow the state’s traffic safety laws.
“A lot of responsibility falls on everyone involved — not just motorists, but bicyclists and pedestrians,” said Jeff Williford, spokesman for TxDOT’s eight-county Tyler district in East Texas.
Pedestrians and bicyclists accounted for one in five deaths on Texas roadways in 2022, a figure that increased almost 30% from 2018, according to TxDOT. More than 900 people died in crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists in 2022.
In 2021, 30 pedestrians and two bicyclists were killed in East Texas’ Tyler district, which includes Gregg, Smith, and Rusk counties, Williford said. Twenty-four pedestrians and three bicyclists died in the district in 2022. And in 2023, 25 pedestrians and two bicyclists were killed.
“We always say, ‘One death is too many. One fatality is too many,’ ” Williford said.
The number of crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists within the city of Longview has remained about the same in the past five years, according to data from the Longview Police Department:
2019: 36 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and four fatal crashes;
2020: 46 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and seven fatal crashes;
2021: 42 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and one fatal crash;
2022: 36 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and five fatal crashes; and
2023: 45 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes crashes and two fatal crashes.
The majority of those crashes occurred along East Marshall Avenue, as that part of town has more pedestrian and bicycle traffic, according to Longview police spokesman Brandon Thornton.
Tyler’s latest pedestrian death was this past week, when 79-year-old Evencio Arellano was hit by a vehicle in the 1800 block of West Front Street, according to the Tyler Police Department.
Here’s information for the past five years in Tyler:
2019: 45 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and zero fatal crashes;
2020: 33 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and four fatal crashes;
2021: 38 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and seven fatal crashes;
2022: 34 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and three fatal crashes; and
2023: 54 pedestrian and bicyclist crashes and 11 fatal crashes.
Unsafe traveling speeds were some of the main factors that contributed to fatal wrecks in the district in 2023, Williford said. Failure to yield the right-of-way correctly — both on the part of drivers and pedestrians — also was a leading cause.
Roads over sidewalks
Neal Johnson is an assistant research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Johnson, whose work focuses on educational outreach for pedestrian safety, said the dangers posed to pedestrians and bicyclists are baked into car-friendly road design.
“In East Texas, you have a lot of wider streets, often without bicycle lanes or sidewalks,” Johnson said. “Higher-speed roadways are a huge issue for pedestrians, and pedestrians need places to cross that are safe.”
Part of the problem, Johnson said, is legacy infrastructure built during the 20th and early 21st centuries that prioritized the convenience of drivers over the safety of other road users.
But as other cities throughout the country have ditched car-centric planning in a bid to eliminate pedestrian deaths and reduce pollution, TxDOT projects in East Texas are doubling down on big roads.
Interstate 20 is seen viewed from the U.S. 59 overpass in Marshall. (Meredith Shamburger/Marshall News Messenger File Photo)
From 2023 to 2026, transportation projects sponsored by TxDOT in Gregg County allocated roughly $152 million in grant funds for widening arterial roads in and around Longview, according to the Longview Municipal Planning Organization. Another $268 million in state and federal grants is planned for a modified freeway interchange on Interstate 20.
In contrast, $2.2 million in federal grants were set aside for a bike and pedestrian project on Mobberly Avenue. That project involves a “road diet” for Mobberly that will nix two lanes in exchange for bike lanes and enhanced sidewalks. The rest of the funding for the project, $5.8 million, is coming from the city of Longview, which sponsored the renovations.
If all the TxDOT-sponsored projects listed by the Longview Municipal Planning Organization come to fruition, Gregg County will see $19 spent on road widening for every $1 spent on bike and pedestrian infrastructure through 2026.
“Drivers tend to think about changes in terms of how much more time they’re spending in traffic, that they want more lanes because there’s more traffic in this area,” Johnson said.
It’s a perspective that’s shared by the Longview Municipal Planning Organization, which guides funding to infrastructure enhancement on Gregg County’s state roadways. By federal law, MPOs are established in every urban area with a population exceeding 50,000. Longview’s MPO works closely with TxDOT to develop its long-term project goals.
Longview Metropolitan Planning Organization Director Bryan McBride explained how the organization uses a “travel demand model” that integrates crash data, population growth, vehicle congestion and other factors to decide where money should be spent. The primary unit of analysis within that model is the driver and vehicle.
Johnson said that, when planners look to manage urban growth, it’s important to accommodate the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists, whose numbers also increase with the population.
“A lot of the issue is how areas of Texas have grown so quickly,” she said. “That spills over into pedestrian and bicycle safety because, without the proper infrastructure for them, you have a lot more intermixing.
“Research in the past several years has shown that, when you separate pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers (and) give them their own space on the road, safety automatically increases,” Johnson said.
A pedestrian skateboards alongside traffic in August on Mobberly Avenue in Longview. (Les Hassell/Longview News-Journal File Photo)
McBride pointed to the Mobberly Avenue project as a bright spot in Longview where those principles are being put into place: “What was once a four-lane roadway is now getting redone to be a two-lane road with sidewalks and bike lanes.”
Johnson held up Portland, Oregon, as a place that has invested heavily in safe multi-mode transit and highlighted Austin for its embrace of blinking pedestrian signals that allow walkers to activate a strobing sign when they intend to cross.
“It doesn’t happen overnight, but TxDOT is moving in that direction,” Johnson said. “Especially in the past few years, they’ve definitely made huge strides in making sure to prioritize pedestrian and cyclist safety.”
Williford concurred.
“We pretty much say every project is a safety project, no matter what it is,” he said. “But a lot of our projects now do include upgrades in your sidewalk, pedestrian lane, bicycle lanes, walkways, crosswalks, lighting. So that’s a big priority for us.”
