{"id":466244,"date":"2026-10-15T00:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/466244\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T00:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:06:10","slug":"what-can-be-done-to-prevent-auto-ped-fatalities-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/466244\/","title":{"rendered":"What can be done to prevent auto-ped fatalities in Texas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A pedestrian was struck by a vehicle and killed on E. State Highway 71 near the Austin airport this morning, according to Austin-Travis County EMS (ATCEMS).<\/p>\n

The crash occurred on the westbound side of the highway near the 1600 block of SH 71. It was reported at approximately 5:54 a.m. <\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Pedestrian dead after being struck by vehicle on SH 71 near Austin airport<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A pedestrian is dead after being struck by a vehicle on State Highway 71 near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport early Wednesday morning, according to Austin-Travis County EMS. (Photo: CBS Austin)<\/p>\n

Jay Blasek Crossley founded Farm&City, a nonprofit that works to end traffic deaths and advocates for transportation access across Texas.<\/p>\n

“This stretch of 71 right there in front of the airport is one of those places where a lot of fatal crashes happen,” said Crossley. “Because it’s this weird mix of pedestrian spaces and very fast roadway, but a total lack of safe places for people to cross and walk.”<\/p>\n

He said Farm&City is compiling a report on the top 100 most dangerous roads in Texas.<\/p>\n

The report, scheduled for publication in the coming months, uses data from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and assigns each reported crash a cost score.<\/p>\n

Minor crashes have less cost than crashes where someone is severely injured, and fatal crashes cost the most. Under this calculation model, SH 71 is on the list of the top 100 most dangerous roadways in Texas.<\/p>\n

KEYE<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Crossley explains that the lack of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure along that section near the crash makes it inconvenient for people without a vehicle to cross to the other side.<\/p>\n

“The way the 71 was designed, there’s not at all a safe place to cross for a mile or more,” he said. “There’s that one place where you come right out of the airport where you could walk under the underpass, but then anywhere between there and the next intersection, you have to walk a really long way.”<\/p>\n

Traffic crash fatalities are a daily occurrence in Texas<\/p>\n

TxDOT reports<\/a> that, in 2025, 3,769 people were killed in traffic crashes in Texas.<\/p>\n

Although that number is a 9.38% decrease from the 4,159 deaths recorded in 2024, the agency also reports that one person was killed in a crash every 2 hours and 19 minutes in 2025.<\/p>\n

According to Austin Transportation and Public Works’ VisionZero dashboard<\/a>, 21 pedestrians have been killed in traffic crashes in Austin so far this year.<\/p>\n

Crossley says pedestrians should be aware not to cross highways without an authorized crosswalk, but he said transportation authorities can do more to prevent people from reaching such high-speed roads.<\/p>\n

One idea: barriers installed by TxDOT to keep people off the highway. Crossley says such infrastructure already exists along stretches of other major roadways like Interstate 35.<\/p>\n

“TxDOT has put up barriers there to make it so it’s clear that you can’t run across the freeway. And I don’t think those same barriers are along 71,” he said.<\/p>\n

ALSO | Austin, UT near deal to give city ownership of historic Muny golf course<\/a><\/p>\n

Crossley said state authorities have made significant strides in decreasing traffic fatalities and improving transportation infrastructure, but there might still be a long way to go.<\/p>\n

“In some ways in the last 10 years, we’ve changed a lot of things,” he said. “The Texas Transportation Commission adopted a goal to end traffic deaths and to cut them in half by 2035 and then increased funding by $300 million a year dedicated to safety, and we’ve had similar changes [in] cities and counties and metro regions across Texas. And so we’re focused on this problem better, but we haven’t figured it out.”<\/p>\n

“We’re focused on…identifying the places that are the most dangerous and actually spending our money on making those places less dangerous,” Crossley said. “That information isn’t integrated into the decision-making system to allocate where we spend our billions.”<\/p>\n

CBS Austin reached out to TxDOT, but the agency declined to interview for this report. <\/p>\n

Additionally, we filed a crash data request for the stretch of SH 71 near the crash site. We are waiting to receive that data from TxDOT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A pedestrian was struck by a vehicle and killed on E. State Highway 71 near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-466244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}