The Human Cost of Mobility in the Atlanta Metro

Propel ATL has their latest Human Cost of Mobility report online, which combines storytelling with data visualization to show the human lives that are lost to the Atlanta Metro’s transportation system. The report should be alarming if it was not so aligned with the nationwide trend of rising traffic deaths. Since traffic deaths rose drastically during the pandemic, they have still never returned close to their pre-pandemic levels. The few areas which have improved have only gone down slightly, and biking and walking remain as vulnerable as ever.

The full report is rich with information and stories of individual victims, and it is worth reading in its entirety.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has also picked up the story and focused on one notable angle: the fact that traffic fatalities outpace homicides. They share some quotes from Propel ATL’s Rebecca Serna.

“Homicide gets so much attention and it’s so challenging to solve because every murder is so distinct,” said Rebecca Serna, executive director of Propel ATL. “Whereas traffic fatalities — people killed just trying to cross the street or due to high speeds — the resolution to those underlying circumstances is so much simpler."

“This is not fate, it’s design,” Serna said. “It’s the way that decision makers have designed our streets to move cars through quickly and to minimize congestion — we get deaths and serious injury as a result.”

Indeed, traffic deaths are no accident but rather the result of decisions our leaders have made, creating a system that’s dangerous by design.