Group Pushes for Safer Streets for Those on Foot : Philadelphia: The Pedestrian Council intends to make the city more walkable by challenging drivers who impede them and encouraging better sidewalk maintenance.

City walkers tired of drivers nearly running them down and garbage scattered in their paths now can unite for safer and cleaner sidewalks.

The recently formed Pedestrian Council, the second private advocacy group for walkers in North America, intends to make Philadelphia more walkable by challenging drivers who stop their vehicles in crosswalks, seeking wider sidewalks and making sure that streets have enough trash bins.

It will lobby city government for stricter enforcement of laws that affect pedestrians and push to make new developments easier for walkers, said John Higgins, executive director of the Foundation for Architecture, the nonprofit group that formed the council.

The council will name 20 board members at its first meeting in mid-November, Higgins said.

“What’s clear is that the interests of pedestrians are not the focus for either public or private decision-makers,” Higgins said. “We want to build some understanding of what pedestrians’ rights are.”

The only other similar group is in Ottawa, Canada, said Patricia Archibald, who organizes an annual convention in Boulder, Colo., of city planners, architects and others responsible for making cities better places to walk in.

The Ottawa group is called Ottawalk. Executive Director Chris Bradshaw said the group lobbies on behalf of pedestrians and promotes walking as an alternative to driving.

Ottawalk, formed 19 months ago, has 55 members who paid $10 each to join.

The pro-walking movement in Ottawa wasn’t taken too seriously at first, Bradshaw said, but city officials are beginning to listen as more walkers speak up.

“It’s really hard to find two or three pedestrians you can rub together and say, ‘Let’s do something about it,’ ” he said. “The main reaction is they have to shake their head and say ‘Is this for real?’ ”

The Pedestrian Council in Philadelphia doesn’t plan on holding membership drives. But it is seeking money.

The group is off to a good first step: the state Department of Community Affairs awarded it a one-year, $25,000 grant.

The Philadelphia council has several items on its agenda: pedestrian safety, sidewalk vendors, landscaping and seating, noise, garbage bins, sidewalk encroachments by businesses and access for the handicapped.

And like the Ottawa group, it would like to see a major change in the making of cars.

Bradshaw said strides have been made on auto safety with padded dashboards and seat belts, but little has been done to change the design of auto bodies to make them less dangerous for pedestrians.

“We assume cars only hit other cars or objects larger than itself. We never assume it will hit a 4-year-old child or a policeman directing traffic,” he said. “What about the blind person who’s walking on the sidewalk, the poor person who can’t afford a car, the mother who’s walking a stroller--they didn’t ask to get into a world where a 2,000-pound hunk of metal is careening around.”