Pedestrian safety must be a top priority

By Mayor Jeff Maloney

Like you, I consider myself extremely fortunate to live in a community like Alhambra. I may be biased, but I think it’s a pretty great place to call home. Still, every community can improve, including our own. Over the last few months, there have been several instances of fatal crashes involving vehicles and pedestrians throughout Alhambra. As a dad of two young children, my heart breaks when I think about the lives that have been lost and the families permanently altered by these tragic, yet avoidable occurrences.

The dangers are unfortunately ever-present, but they don’t have to be. These collisions may seem inevitable, but they are not. We do not have to stand by and allow these tragic incidents to continue. We need not accept the status quo that has proven fatal to too many of our fellow Alhambrans. We need to be more like Hoboken. Yes, Hoboken, New Jersey.

At first glance, Alhambra and Hoboken share many characteristics: both are medium-sized cities located directly adjacent to a major metropolitan center (Los Angeles and New York City, respectively). Both cities are residential communities where many people commute to big, nearby job centers.

However, just a few years ago, Hoboken implemented a series of simple, yet effective changes to its streets. Improvements to crosswalks, bike paths, parking, and streetscapes have proven to be extremely potent in reducing pedestrian deaths. The result? Hoboken has not had any fatal vehicle/ pedestrian incidents since 2018 – ZERO.

Fortunately my colleagues on the City Council have unanimously recognized this as a deeply important issue. We recently awarded a contract to a well-respected transportation firm (Alta Planning + Design) to help us create and implement Alhambra’s very first pedestrian and bicycle safety plan. Likewise, Councilmember Perez and I have convened a “Vision Zero” working group to explore these issues in depth and help to make recommendations to achieve zero vehicle-pedestrian fatalities, just like our East Coast counterparts.

City staff and our consultant recently held a kickoff meeting to get the formal process underway. Soon we will begin a thorough public outreach and engagement effort, which will be led by Active SGV (a local advocacy nonprofit responsible for our wonderful 626 Golden Streets events). Please be on the lookout for an announcement of the public meeting schedule. I hope you all will participate!

As always, if you have any feedback on this, or any other issue, please email me at: jmaloney4alhambra@gmail.com. I hope everyone had a great summer!