A new study by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition identifies the deadliest metro areas for people walking in the United States. Dangerous by Design 2026 ranks all 50 states and the 101 largest metro areas for pedestrian deaths and finds the vast majority—more than 80%—have gotten more deadly over time.

In 2024, the year with the most recent complete federal data, 7,080 people were struck and killed while walking in the U.S. Despite modest improvements from historic highs in 2022, that number represents 72% more pedestrian fatalities than seen in 2009. Even if pedestrian fatalities continue to decline at the current rate, we wouldn’t reach 2009 levels until 2042.

"Our leaders are celebrating small improvements from historic deaths as some major victory, while thousands of people continue to be hit and killed while walking every year," said Beth Osborne, President and CEO of Smart Growth America.  “If we were any other country, this would be treated as a national crisis. Instead, our leaders are quick to accept these deaths as a necessary aspect of our transportation system.”

“If we were actually serious about safety, we would stop patting ourselves on the back for minor reductions in deaths and ask why thousands of people are still being killed from a problem we already know how to solve," continued Osborne.

Dangerous by Design researchers found that Black Americans are killed while walking at 171% of the national average, while American Indian and Alaska Native populations experience pedestrian fatality rates that are 367% of the national average.

Memphis, Tennessee, remained the deadliest metro area in the nation for people walking, followed by Albuquerque, New Mexico; Bakersfield-Delano, California; Tucson, Arizona; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, Arkansas; Fresno, California; Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL; New Orleans-Metairie, LA; and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, rounded out the ten deadliest metro areas in the report.

New Mexico remained the deadliest state for people walking, followed by Louisiana, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, California, Georgia, and Delaware.

Among the report's findings:

• Memphis, TN remains the deadliest metro area in the nation for people walking, with a pedestrian fatality rate of 5.5 deaths per 100,000 residents—the highest pedestrian fatality rate ever observed in Dangerous by Design since 2009.
• New Mexico remains the deadliest state in the nation for people walking, with a pedestrian fatality rate of 4.42 deaths per 100,000 residents.
• Many communities that improved in the rankings did not become safer. In many cases, these were places where pedestrian fatality rates increased while other places became dangerous even faster.
• Only 18 of the 101 metro areas saw decreases in their long-term pedestrian fatality rates (comparing 2015-2019 avg. pedestrian fatality per 100k people to 2020-24 avg. pedestrian fatality per 100k people). Of the 18 metro areas that improved their pedestrian fatality rates in our 2024 report, only 7 of those maintained their progress in this edition.
• The most dangerous places today are far deadlier than those identified when Dangerous by Design was first released. The deadliest metro area in the 2009 edition would rank only 15th today.

The report also finds that the U.S. continues to fall behind its global peers on pedestrian safety. According to the report, if the United States had matched the average safety improvements achieved by peer nations over the last decade, 63,441 lives otherwise lost to traffic violence could have been saved.

Dangerous by Design 2026 calls on policymakers and transportation agencies to adopt a higher standard for success and stop treating small reductions in fatalities as evidence that the problem has been solved.

"We know how to prevent deaths on our streets," said Heidi Simon, Director of Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America and a co-author of the report. "Communities across the country have shown that safer street design saves lives. But one-off interventions don’t erase a decade of rising fatalities. Real progress is sustained progress, and until we commit to making safer street design the default, thousands of people will continue to pay the price."

Methodology

This edition of Dangerous by Design ranks states and metro areas based on pedestrian deaths per 100k residents over a five-year timeframe (2020-2024). The year 2024 is the most recent year available for final federal data, including nationwide numbers on pedestrian fatalities that can be broken down by localities and compared with census tracts. Additional reports in this series will be issued this summer