What is so shocking about this fact. Low income cities do not have the money to put into infrastructure, such as sidewalks, cross walks and other traffic safety measures. That would seem to be pretty darn obvious. Maybe I am missing the main point of the article.
LOL. And people who live in better neighborhoods also have a sense of responsibility and fear of losing their livelihood through stupid accidents. We tend to not get into our punked up cars and speed through the neighborhood for attention. Another no brainer, common sense issue given research money.
Well, there might be a point there from a purely statistical standpoint ... but I'm not sure the author's recommendations (improve streets, add landscaping, eliminate four-way intersections where possible, etc.) will do anything in the long run. If these measures are adopted, the city's poor neighborhoods will become more attractive places to live ... and they won't be poor neighborhoods anymore. Then the whole process will start all over again. Eventually, the streets in the poor neighborhoods of Montreal (wherever they are in 50 years) will still be less safe than the streets in the wealthy neighborhoods. Then there will be another "crisis" to solve -- even if those poor neighborhoods 50 years from now are safer than wealthy neighboroods are today.
I used to live on Mercer Island, a few doors down from Paul Allen’s compound. I would ride my bike to work in Downtown Seattle via West Mercer Way. It was a very nice, smooth twisty along the west side of the island. By anyone’s standards the road was in excellent condition. And bike commuters know a good road when they ride on one. :-)
One day I’m coming home from work and they are repaving the whole danged thing! Meanwhile, some of the roads I traveled in Seattle needed to be repaved DECADES ago.
So yeah, I rich tax base is gonna have nicer roads.