Making Santa Ana Walker-Safe

Santa Ana officials should take a closer look at other cities to see how to make the streets of Orange County’s most populous city safer for its pedestrians.

In 1999, seven people were killed crossing streets in Santa Ana. In the last four years, the number of pedestrians struck by cars averaged more than 100 each year.

A Santa Ana Unified School District study last year found that nearly half of the pedestrian accidents involved children walking near campuses. Young people, who often depend on walking and bicycling, are in particular danger. So are the elderly, not as fleet of foot.

Natalia Gonzalez, for instance, 76 years old, was crossing the street in front of her house on her way to church last April when she was struck and fatally injured by a car. As was true in six of the seven fatalities last year, police found the pedestrian “at fault.”

Although coroner’s reports said five of the seven killed last year were legally drunk, alcohol or drug use was cited in only 6% of all the city’s accidents that police blamed on pedestrians. Many Santa Ana streets are dangerous because they are so narrow and thronged with residents, cars and vending trucks.

Two cities in Los Angeles County that have tried to be more friendly to pedestrians, West Hollywood and Santa Monica, are trying innovative programs that Santa Ana officials unfortunately say are out of reach financially or practically.

In West Hollywood, officials are putting flashing yellow lights similar to those on airport runways on crosswalks. The intent is to grab the attention of drivers and get them to slow down. In Santa Monica, the city is tearing apart Pico Boulevard and rebuilding it with grassy medians. That gives pedestrians refuge while crossing the street.

That idea makes sense, but Santa Ana last year passed an ordinance prohibiting pedestrians from standing on raised medians. The purpose was to force pedestrians to cross at intersections or crosswalks rather than in the middle of the block, where many accidents occur.

But many Santa Ana streets are long, with great distances between crosswalks.

It is unrealistic to expect people to walk hundreds more yards to use a crosswalk, especially if they have to do so several times on the way to or from their destination. Grassy medians do provide a resting place if the light changes before someone can cross from one side to the other.

Santa Ana should rethink that ordinance.