Roosevelt Boulevard is one of Philadelphia’s most dangerous roads. This is because Roosevelt Boulevard it’s a messy, confusing piece of infrastructure. Pedestrians, drivers, bicyclists, and public transporters are all susceptible to the chaos and confusion of the dangerous Roosevelt Boulevard. The dangerous road design majorly contributes to pedestrian injuries, car accidents, bicyclist accidents, and deaths.
Too wide, yet not enough to support traffic
Roosevelt Boulevard is a long and wide road, it comes with long distances between intersections, spaced over 1,000 feet apart. Roosevelt Boulevard is 12 lanes wide, but it’s still not big enough to accommodate all of the traffic that it sees. The number of lanes makes it overwhelming for drivers and pedestrians to travel safely. People don’t feel confident and comfortable when driving on Roosevelt Boulevard which often can lead to an increase in all kinds of car accidents. Things get further complicated because of the local and express lanes that require drivers to switch lanes often.
Driving the road is too complicated
Roosevelt Boulevard is still a very dangerous, scary road even after traffic has died down since it often leads to speeding and car racing at night. There are numerous driveways and access points. Many of the access points and driveways cut through sidewalks. When this happens it ends up creating more conflict points between the pedestrians and drivers.
Roosevelt Boulevard has complex intersections which require complex turning movements. The non-perpendicular intersections combined with heavy traffic creates more chances for conflicts between the pedestrians and the people driving. Many of the Boulevard’s side streets are skewed and result in longer crossing distance for pedestrians which exposes them longer to vehicles that are also crossing the Boulevard. Even police try to refrain from pulling over people on Roosevelt because there’s no shoulder to safely pull over on.
Due to the long crossing distances, pedestrians walking on Roosevelt Boulevard need multiple traffic signal cycles to cross the road. Unfortunately, there’s not a comfortable amount of time to cross the boulevard, so pedestrians are forced to wait on the narrow medians between lanes of moving traffic while they wait for the next walking signal. The don’t walk warning signal is very brief and quick so it doesn’t allow for safe crossing. Traffic signal cycle is only 90 seconds which is not enough time for pedestrians.
Bicyclists endure the same challenges as pedestrians. Roosevelt Boulevard’s hazardous design doesn’t provide any separation between the traffic and the bicyclists, so they’re fighting to share the road. Roosevelt Boulevard is described as feeling like an expressway, despite the fact that it’s in the middle and between neighborhoods
A hazard to pedestrians
Roosevelt Boulevard has six miles that lack sidewalks which leads pedestrians to jay walk across the dangerous road. Pedestrians are sometimes forced to cross long distances because of the width of the road.
The turning lanes that have been carved out make it more dangerous for pedestrians to cross safely. Between the years of 2011 and 2020, 279 crashes on Roosevelt Boulevard involved pedestrians.
Roosevelt Boulevard has limited sidewalk buffers. This means that pedestrians have to walk along a sidewalk where there’s a very limited buffer between them and the very busy and fast road.
Buses are too slow for the traffic
The city attempted to resolve the congestion problem by building a Broad Street Line subway station at Roosevelt Boulevard and Adam’s Avenue; however, the BSL was never extended that far, so the station goes unused. Since the BSL doesn’t extend up to Roosevelt Boulevard, the only other means of public transportation is the bus. It takes buses at least 45 minutes to travel 8 miles on the 14-mile boulevard.
Buses are too slow and disrupt the flow of the traffic. Buses are a hazard to other drivers because of their slow speed. But since there’s no subways, there’s no other means of transportation that can alleviate traffic.
Too many dangerous factors
There’s too much happening on Roosevelt Boulevard which can be distracting and hazardous. You are never sure which way to look or go with all the confusing intersections, turns, and lanes. The 12 lanes come with a heavy flow of traffic, consisting of 39,000 and 90,000 vehicles per day and 10 bus lines. Roosevelt Boulevard runs like a 14 mile maze where every design cue encourages drivers to speed and go over the speed limit of 45 in order to keep up with the flow of traffic.
Reach out to Kwartler Manus LLC
Unlike trying to navigate the dangerous, confusing road Roosevelt Boulevard, Kwartler Manus LLC knows how to navigate car accident cases. If you’ve been injured as a result of someone else’s negligence on Roosevelt Boulevard, reach out to us by calling our office today.