Cincinnati Police today (Oct. 16) launched a new initiative to increase traffic enforcement in problem areas around the city after numerous concerns around pedestrian safety have surfaced over the past couple years here.
CPD Chief Eliot Isaac, community leaders and representatives from Children’s Hospital outlined the effort today at a news conference in Pleasant Ridge. Isaac says the program will center around “three Es” — “education, enforcement and environmental” changes.
Part of that effort will be a two-week enforcement blitz in some neighborhoods where more officers will be on the job watching for speeding and aggressive driving along problem streets. That won’t necessarily mean CPD officers writing more tickets — it will be more about increased visibility in areas where the city has received a lot of complaints about speeding and aggressive driving, as well as efforts to teach and remind drivers about safe driving practices.
“We are always looking for innovative ways and unique partnerships to focus on traffic safety,” Isaac said. “Many of our neighbors walk in their communities and business districts to get to school and to work each day. We want to make sure both drivers and pedestrians are equally as alert when they’re walking as when they’re driving, always following our traffic laws.”
The effort comes after a number of high-profile pedestrian deaths in traffic accidents have happened around Cincinnati in recent years. That’s a national trend as well, CPD says, with 16 percent of traffic fatalities coming from accidents that involve pedestrians or cyclists. The number of pedestrians and cyclists involved and killed in those accidents across the country has risen in recent years, the department says.
But one piece of the puzzle locally may be declines in enforcement. An investigation by WCPO found that traffic stops by CPD declined 60 percent between 2012 and 2016. That investigation also found spotty enforcement: for example, CPD didn’t issue a single ticket for speeding in 2017 along a particularly busy stretch of Hamilton Avenue through Northside, a location that has drawn numerous complaints from residents following the death of neighborhood business owner Sarah Cole in 2016.
The issue of pedestrian safety has rattled around City Hall over the past year, with battles playing out over a street-narrowing project in OTR and over funding for street improvements across Cincinnati in the city’s budget.
CPD says its effort comes after consultation with community leaders across all five districts it serves. The neighborhoods it is focusing on were decided based on a survey administered by the city’s Department of Transportation and Engineering and include:
• Avondale
• Bond Hill
• Clifton
• College Hill
• Downtown
• East Price Hill
• Hyde Park
• Lower Price Hill
• Mount Airy
• Mount Washington
• Northside
• Over-the-Rhine
• Paddock Hills
• Pleasant Ridge
• Roselawn
• Walnut Hills
• West End
• Winton Hills
This article appears in Oct 10-17, 2018.
