Walking infrastructure - Transportation for America

A report by Transportation for America points to how there were 47,700 pedestrian fatalities during the decade 2000-2009. Such translates to around 13 deaths a day, 91 a week, or about 390 a month. As they put it, we would certainly not tolerate a jumbo jet crashing with no survivors each and every month of the year.

While it's true that many local streets are built with local money, the busier streets usually have a federal funding component, and they are the streets that tend to be busiest and most dangerous, as well as most often traveled. Currently, pedestrian funding composes a mere 1.5% of the federal transportation budget. But such is being targeted for elimination nevertheless. Eliminating that funding would only make matters worse for pedestrians, which would increase car dependency and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. It would de facto make streets only for cars, rather than complete ones that are for all users.