Million-dollar judgement against Kansas City in crosswalk death

The sad case of UMKC piano student Pei Chen, who was killed while crossing a four-lane street in a poorly marked school zone crosswalk, has finally reached a resolution. According to a KCStar article:

Years of city inaction at a dangerous crosswalk are largely to blame for the death last year of a Chinese piano student, a Jackson County jury decided Monday.

Jurors said that Kansas City should pay more than $1 million to Zhiping Chen and Huifang Tan of China, the parents of Pei Chen. State law, however, caps city liability at $300,000.

The common thread in this case and the California case in which the city was assessed almost $40 million because the city's failure to install a sidewalk led to a pedestrian death, is that citizen complaints had alerted the city to a situation hazardous to pedestrians, and yet the city failed to take action to remedy the situation.

The courts have spoken now, with utmost clarity, that such situations are completely unacceptable.

Now we need to make sure that Missouri cities hear the message the court has given.

We need to raise our voices to make sure cities know about dangerous circumstances--both specific dangerous spots and entire transportation systems that are dangerous to bicyclists and pedestrians.

Then we need to use these cases to drive the point home and make sure real changes are implemented.

Up to now our cities have been built mostly for the convenienence of high-speed automobile driving and with utter disregard for the needs to cyclists and pedestrians. City planners and engineers admit as much.

Mike Hendricks quoted Kansas City traffic engineer Jerry Tapscott as saying about proposed solutions for the particular area where Pei Chen died and numerous other pedestrians have been injured, "It makes it very difficult to move traffic."

Well, duh. Traffic moving on a four lane road at 40 MPH with a mile between traffic signals is essentially incompatible with pedestrian friendliness. So something's got to give--and the courts have now said, it is not the pedestrians.

Some engineers, planners, and politicians and beginning to see the light. We need to help them see it faster.

It would be appropriate to send a copy of these two articles to your own city's mayor, public works director, city planner, and so on, with a few pointed comments.

The Pei Chen case has previously been covered in MoBikeFed news here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.