A public forum in Avondale aims to find creative solutions to pedestrian safety in Cincinnati. Council Member Mark Jeffreys says he's invited several national experts to participate in the forum, but he wants to hear from residents as well.
"The purpose of it is not specific to any one neighborhood, it's really to bring in mostly people outside of the city who are working in really innovative ways in the area of pedestrian safety, to maybe challenge ourselves to think about doing things a little differently, in order to make sure that we're making progress on making our streets safer," Jeffreys said.
Last year in Cincinnati, 305 people were hit by cars and seven died, including a 7-year-old child and a pregnant woman.
More than a dozen organizations are partnering on the event. Jeffreys says he's invited experts from the Houston and Cleveland transportation departments and Bike Maine to present their ideas, followed by smaller breakout groups.
Jeffreys says there are long-term plans to research pedestrian safety and implement best practices, like redesigning streets — but that will take a lot of time.
"There's some urgency and some of the things that other cities are doing are, quote unquote, quicker and cheaper," he said. "The intent of this is OK, let's really bring ourselves together to have a couple of concrete ideas come out of this, that we can then take the communities to quickly implement."
Other city officials and council members will be in attendance, including Department of Transportation and Engineering Director John Brazina.
When and where
Tuesday, March 1 at 6:30 p.m.
Hirsch Recreation Center (3630 Reading Road)
Learn more: https://bit.ly/35SjceB
