Philadelphia police are making moves to address pedestrian safety in certain areas of the city considered “hot spots” for problems. NBC10’s Yukare Nakayama shares details about the new initiative.
Already this year, 61 people have died in crash-related incidents on Philadelphia streets and, police officials said, last year, 124 people were killed in crashes in the city.
Just last month, a pediatric doctor, who had been named a chief resident at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, was killed while riding her bike in Center City.
Since 2019, nearly 30 people have been killed while riding bikes in Philadelphia.
According to police data, 118 pedestrians, including those on-foot or on a bike or skateboard, were killed by vehicles in Philadelphia last year. The same amount of pedestrians were killed in crashes in 2021 and 2022.
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And, in Philadelphia, pedestrian hit-and-run fatalities reached an all time high last year.
On Thursday, police officials announced an effort to push back against these statistics with an initiative that will target aggressive driving -- including speeding and ignoring traffic signals -- focused on high incident areas throughout the city.
"We're going to combine traffic and highway patrol again with some of our other units with the districts 12 and 24 and we're going to see if we can really make a difference," Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner James Kelly said during Thursday's announcement.
In a statement, officials said the initiative would focus on these specific areas in the 12th and 24th districts:
- The 2200 block through the 3700 block of Island Avenue, which would span from Bartam to Woodland avenues.
- The 2700 block through the 3900 block of Aramingo Avenue, which would stretch from Somerset Avenue to Frankford Creek.
Police said of the 26,000 reported car accidents in Philadelphia so far in 2024, 10 percent of them have occurred in those areas.
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The new effort is to begin on Monday, Aug. 5, and will continue through Friday, Aug. 31.
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