“We’re studying a lot of these crosswalk locations and places where we might need more,” said Kristen Milam, City of Springfield Communication Coordinator in May. “Our crash studies have shown that it’s kind of 50/50 responsibility-wise.”

Oh brother we have a lot of hearts and minds to change in this town. This isn’t some unexpected result. Traffic engineers design our roads for maximum thorough-put of cars and nothing else. Human life outside of the car is the last thing taken into consideration. This creates a mountain of negative side effects for our cities. The first that comes to mind is the stroad. A stroad is a bad combination of two types of vehicular pathways: it is part street which is defined as a "complex environment where life in the city happens", with pedestrians, cars, buildings close to the sidewalk for easy accessibility, with many (property) entrances / exits to and from the street, and with spaces for temporary parking and delivery vehicles—and part road, which is defined as a "high-speed connection between two places" with wide lanes, limited entrances and exits, and which are generally straight or have gentle curves. In essence a Stroad attempts to be both a street and road and does neither well. Think of South Campbell or North Kansas as perfect examples. They’re places where you would never want to be outside of a car and hazardous to your health for many reasons. Just ignoring the fact that you might have to walk a 1/2 mile or more to a “safe” crossing, when you get there you’re greeted with 6-8 lanes to play fucking frogger just to get to work or get some food. I’m going to get real worked up if I keep going but it really strikes a nerve in me seeing the city officials, who should be working to actively make this city a better place to live and instead are victim blaming people who are simply living their lives. This place just feels hopeless and destitute sometimes, I don’t know why I bother.