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MobilityActive

Pedestrian safety & crossings

Walkability

Over a hundred pedestrians die every year, while crossings are moved and erased 'to increase car throughput'. The pedestrian's right is systematically below the car's.

Pedestrian crossing on Tamanyan Street, Yerevan
Photo: Benoît Prieur · Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0
Pressure index · since 200978
harm
4/5
reach
4/5
trajectory
Active
entrenchment
17 years
Evidence: well-documented

How it began

Existed but unrecorded

Before. Pedestrians died before too, but pedestrian safety was never studied: until the 2009–2010 survey, Armenia had no published research on it. The problem existed, but was neither counted nor named.

What changed. A growing car fleet and the first surveys made the car-centric danger to pedestrians visible.

Timeline

  1. Origin

    Survey: crossing the street is dangerous

    A survey found over 70% of Yerevan residents felt crossing the street was dangerous. Even after a 2010 police campaign, little changed.

  2. Development

    117 pedestrian deaths in a year

    117 pedestrian deaths nationwide; Yerevan alone had 86 deaths and ~2,172 crashes (nearly half the national total).

  3. DevelopmentLoss

    PM's motorcade kills a pregnant pedestrian crossing on green

    A vehicle in PM Pashinyan's motorcade killed pedestrian Sona Mnatsakanyan (31 weeks pregnant) on Leo/Paronyan St. as she crossed on a green light. Speed was 108.7 km/h (the motorcade's limit was 100); no motorcade vehicle stopped. The driver was later sentenced to just 1.5 years — the starkest case of the pedestrian's right ranking below the car's.

    Nikol Pashinyan

  4. Civic actionOngoing

    Rally for safe crossings

    Residents (the 'Yerevan for People' initiative) rallied to restore the removed Mashtots/Moskovyan and Mashtots/Isahakyan crossings and to keep the city's pedestrian crossings.

    Event →
  5. DecisionContested

    A crossing moved 'to increase throughput'

    The crossing on Grigor Lusavorich St. was relocated by the Myasnikyan monument — with the stated purpose of 'increasing traffic-flow capacity'.

    Yerevan Municipality

  6. Update

    A car hit a mother and child at a crosswalk

    At a marked crosswalk on Fuchik St., a 20-year-old driver hit a mother and her child (a 9-year-old girl); the girl suffered a broken leg and needed surgery.

Connections

Key facts

Pedestrian deaths (2019, nationwide)
117
Feel crossing is dangerous
>70%

Sources