Road safety activists want crash data – LCG will not pass it on

Cycling through Lafayette is dangerous as much as we know. A large part of the state and large local roads in the city – 65% according to a recent report by the Trip National Transportation Research Group – is in poor or mediocre condition. As a state, Louisiana is consistently among the most dangerous states for cyclists and pedestrians.

For local supporters who want to make Lafayette more secure, an administrative hurdle presents an important roadblock: While data on the most dangerous streets and intersections exist, the government refuses to share it by referring to federal law.

General traffic statistics via Lafayette Parish are easily available to the public. The Center for Analytical Research in Transport Security (Carts) breaks off the crash data in the state through everything, from the type of accident to injury figures. According to Karren, Lafayette Parish had 54 deaths from pedestrians and cyclists between 2019 and 2023.

Finding out where these crashes take place – important information to prevent future deaths – things will be difficult.

“So that we are good supporters, we have to see the data,” says Matt Holland, secretary and treasurer of Bike Lafayette, a local group for biker biking. Holland has taken the matter into his own hands by putting up data that was drawn from news publications, but that only brings it so far. For example, he can only count deaths in this way, not on injuries.

The data he is looking for are available, and other cities such as Houston and New Orleans pass them on to the public.

The New Orleans Transportation Safety Dashboard FAURAGE board changes the city's crash data to its city map. The map shows the location of the crashes on city roads and enables users to destroy the data based on pedestrian operations or bicycle accidents by 2023, whereby the data provided by Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development to New Orleans was used annually using data.

Alrene La Spina, Managing Director of Bike Easy, a non -profit security activism group for bikers in New Orleans, calls the city board “a step in the right direction to make the data more accessible”, even if it is not a perfect tool.

The organization used the dashboard to point out problem streets for legislators and city staff on problem streets, with the focus on high -traffic state streets that run through the city.

“The main thing is the priority that this is a useful instrument for not only elected civil servants, but also for supporters in this area,” says La Spina, who says that her non-profit organization is working to develop more buy-in city employees and chosen officers for security measures for bikers and pedestrians.

Lafayette activists like Nuraka Ross say that local data could be helpful for you in a similar way. “I think the community would benefit if they were transparent and this information would publish,” says Ross.

In the meantime, Lafayette Consolidated Government quotes a federal law to argue why it will not release the data. Officials say that the data compiled by the state cannot be shared, although a large part of it is collected by the local law enforcement authorities.

This law, 23 USC 407, prohibits data and reports that are used for security planning from the discovery before federal and state courts, but nothing about their publication or use for other purposes. The law expressly applies to streets that are suitable for federal financing, which includes the state motorway system in Louisiana. Some of the most important passage substances from Lafayette, such as Ambassador Cafferery Parkway and La 94, are part of this system.

“I am concerned that the reason why you do not want to share the data is that you do not do the necessary work,” says Holland.

According to Ross, local governments such as LCG should possibly be held accountable if they do not repair dangerous intersections and streets, which should prevent the federal law at state and federal level.

“This is the jumping point. We need them to do these things. They have stakeholders and financing,” says Ross.

However, according to Ashley Moran, planning and political administration of the ACADiana Planning Commission is the assessment of the local government's efforts to combat deaths and injuries if the locations are simply examined with high injuries. Such cards only reflect areas with the greatest traffic density, she says.

According to Moran, the APC uses an approach for road improvements, which is promoted by the Federal Highway Administration and adopted by many other states, which are called zero death and secure system approach.

This is the same program that was advertised on the New Orleans website as part of a mission statement together with the dashboard of Data LCG.

This practice uses formulas to determine areas in which accidents are overrepresented and aim at improvement areas.

However, most of this process, including the calculation of the formulas, is not public and leaves the same problem for activists who want to be accountable for planners and local governments or who want to work for more funds.

“I believe that awareness would help to acquire more funds across the board,” says Ross.

Ross argues even shortly before the local government was suppressed to make the necessary changes to the road conditions and the design through legal measures or additional funds for improvements that a better understanding of high -risk cyclists and pedestrians could make more aware.

“If the municipality, whose appropriate pedestrian infrastructure is missing, is made aware of the position in your community, you will make better -well -founded decisions on how to navigate these areas, be two, be careful and avoid three improvements to the pedestrian infrastructure,” she says.