New numbers reveal that Loop 12 in Dallas has had the highest number of traffic deaths this year. A recent incident involved a Dallas teenager who was fatally hit while walking to school on the East Ledbetter Road section of Loop 12 near Marsalis. NBC 5 Investigates has been focusing on the dangers on Loop 12 with their series “Driven to Death,” prompting transportation officials to promise safety improvements in response to the investigation. Senior Investigative reporter Scott Friedman has more.
To see what's wrong with Loop 12, you only have to take a walk.
Taylor Toynes, who leads the For Oak Cliff Community Center, said many drivers speed down the Ledbetter Boulevard section of Loop 12 as if it were a freeway, ignoring the children who may be walking or playing nearby.
Speed, however, is just one part of the problem.
For months, NBC 5 Investigates has shown how Loop 12 leaves many pedestrians in Southern Dallas with a terrible choice: either walk a long way to find a crosswalk or take the faster route to the other side of the street by risking injury or death, cutting across six lanes of traffic.
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In the first nine months of this year, there have been 15 fatal crashes on Loop 12, making it the deadliest roadway in the city of Dallas again this year. Six of the people killed in those crashes were pedestrians, including a teenager killed on Friday near Marsalis and Loop 12 and another who died near Ledbetter Drive and Bonnie View Road, where our review of TxDOT crash data found a roughly one-mile stretch of road where six pedestrians were killed in just 17 months.
"It's an emergency that needs to be taken care of immediately," Toynes said.
Michael Morris agrees. Morris is the transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and one of the region's top transportation officials. He told NBC 5 Investigates that his agency will help lead the effort to reshape Loop 12 into a slower and safer street.
"I think you're going to see dozens of strategies being implemented over the next year and maybe dozens of strategies being implemented in addition to that, as we see what works and what doesn't work," Morris said.
The new push to address the dangers comes after NBC 5 Investigates revealed just how often people were dying on Loop 12.
State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, then called for a town hall meeting in May, at which Morris and other officials from the Texas Department of Transportation and the city of Dallas pledged to find solutions.
Now, we're getting a glimpse of what's in the works for Loop 12. First, the Dallas City Council is expected to take up a proposal to lower the speed limit on sections of Loop 12 this week and Morris said his agency is working with the city and state on plans to slow speeds by redesigning portions of the road and implementing other safety tools aimed at reducing deaths.
Loop 12 was built decades ago as a highway loop on the edges of the city, but now it's a busy urban road that still transitions at one point from a freeway into a city street, which Morris said adds to the danger.
"So if the roadway looks like a junior freeway and you artificially put a speed up there, you're kidding yourself thinking the driver is going to go that particular speed," Morris said.
Morris told NBC 5 Investigates that transportation planners are also working on adding safer pedestrian crossings to reduce the constant flow of people seen walking in the roadway and using a narrow strip of the median as a stopping point as they try to get safely across the street.
Morris said engineers will also address the area where Loop 12 cuts through Glendale Park, separating the community pool from a picnic area and a bus stop on the other side of the street. Anyone getting off the bus headed to the pool on the other side of the street would have to walk about half a mile in either direction to reach the closest crosswalk and make the walk back. The faster but far more dangerous option is to walk across the street through traffic.
Dallas has allocated bond funding for a pedestrian bridge that would link the two sides of the park. However, Morris said other possible solutions are still on the table, and road planners want to hear feedback from the community.
Meanwhile, NBC 5 Investigates has learned DART is addressing bus stops on Loop 12 that leave riders in tough spots because they're far from crosswalks. DART plans to relocate 28 stops and remove 16 others, including one near Loop 12/Buckner Boulevard and Cordell Drive.
That stop left riders with about a half-mile walk to the nearest crosswalk. Instead of walking to the crosswalk, many riders made the more dangerous decision to cross the street at the bus stop.
On Ledbetter, near For Oak Cliff Community Center, officials are working on addressing another concern -- a lack of curbs that separate sidewalks from streets.
Change will take time, but people with the power to bring change are promising swift action.
"I'm not asking the community to be patient with us. The community's expectation should be, 'This is an emergency, and you should treat it as an emergency.' That's what their expectation should be," Morris said.
A TxDOT spokesman confirmed that the agency is currently evaluating a "systemwide approach" to dealing with challenges on Loop 12 but said the agency will not release additional details until it has final recommendations.
Morris said the NCTCOG is now looking more widely across the region to identify other roads that may have similar characteristics to Loop 12, including a stretch of freeway that transitions to a city street, high speeds, and lots of pedestrian traffic, particularly in communities that rely heavily on public transportation. Factors that appear to be linked to many of the deaths on Loop 12.
