Fast and furious: This Providence street pits pedestrians against cars, and pedestrians keep losing.

Walk down Providence's North Main Street, and you might think you're traversing one sprawling strip mall. Liquor stores, coffee shops, sandwich joints and a Whole Foods all line the main drag.

So do the memorials for pedestrians killed by drivers.

Rosie Jaswal, a traffic engineer and member of the city's new North Main Street Task Force, recently joined The Providence Journal on a tour of the thoroughfare. Equipped with a radar gun, Jaswal clocked drivers averaging speeds in the mid-30s. One vehicle whooshed past, registering at about 40 miles per hour.

What's the speed limit on this stretch? Try 25 mph.

Jaswal is more than familiar with this street. For her, and numerous other residents, it's a lifeline to groceries, bus stops and other daily necessities. But hoofing it can be treacherous. Jaswal recalled once stepping into a crosswalk when the flashing walk sign switched to a flashing hand, a warning to pedestrians that time is running out. She said a driver then shouted at her.

"It feels like there's some animosity sometimes when drivers feel like they don't need to be giving up the right of way in certain circumstances," Jaswal said.

Aside from animosity, a simple fact remains: The street's design isn't rolling out the welcome mat for those traveling on foot. The long, straight, multi-lane road is almost totally uninterrupted by speed bumps, meaning drivers can really pick up speed until they're well above the modest speed limit.

'Doing nothing is not an option'

The Rhode Island Department of Transportation owns the street and therefore has the authority to make key changes that advocates say would bolster safety.

At the first meeting of the North Main Street Task Force in January, stakeholders from the city, state, police and community convened to hash out the issues. The Providence Streets Coalition, a group advocating for shared and safe streets, laid out a list of immediate actions it wants taken. Among them: temporary speed humps at hotspots for pedestrian crashes.

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Already, RIDOT has declined, citing a blanket rule against using speed humps.

"RIDOT does not install speed humps on state roadways, which tend to have higher volumes of traffic," said RIDOT spokesman Charles St. Martin. "They are more appropriate for lower-volume residential roadways. We try to look at other traffic calming measures."

But for advocates, that response may not be good enough.

"There are a wide variety of evidence-based safety interventions that RIDOT can make to preserve life on North Main Street, including retiming signals, restriping travel lanes and intersections, preventing drivers from using shoulders as slip lanes, and more," said Liza Burkin, the coalition's lead organizer and a transportation policy analyst for the U.S. Department of Transportation. "But doing nothing is not an option, and will only lead to more senseless tragedy in our community. It is the state's responsibility to protect human life, and to prioritize safety over speed on North Main and all state roads."

Another recommendation from the coalition: tightening turns at intersections so that cars aren't able to speed along wide arcs. RIDOT would not immediately commit to that measure, stating that it would be "discussed among the task force."

However, RIDOT did commit to repairing any broken equipment on the street. That includes a broken walk signal at the Olney Street crossing parallel to North Main.

RIDOT is still withholding crash data from the public

As pedestrian deaths on North Main Street have continued – with three occurring within the past year – RIDOT has refused to release data on pedestrian crashes, stating that it is allowed to withhold that information because it cannot be used in lawsuits. (A past request for such data by The Providence Streets Coalition was denied, despite having no connection to any litigation.)

But Jaswal thinks the public is missing out on crucial information.

"That helps when we’re doing projects," she said. "It helps community members that have concerns to really be looking at the trends and what’s happening frequently and what can be done about it."

That is the exact question the task force is attempting to answer.

More: Providence drivers hit more than 3,600 pedestrians, cyclists in 13 years. Here's where.

Pedestrian deaths soaring across the U.S. Why?

Pedestrian deaths aren't just a problem on North Main Street. They're soaring across the U.S. A report from the Governors Highway Safety Association counted at least 7,508 pedestrian deaths in 2022, the most since 1981.

Big cars are part of the problem.

"The front ends of vehicles are getting taller, so as a driver sitting inside them, you can’t see pedestrians as clearly as a car with a lower front end," Jaswal said. "And the car is getting heavier, and the car is getting larger – this means when you get impacted by a vehicle, you’re more likely to get seriously injured or die."

Jaswal also takes issue with vehicle safety ratings that focus on what happens to drivers in a crash rather than pedestrians who are hit.

That's something the federal government has been reconsidering. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed crash tests that would measure the risk of various injuries to pedestrians. However, the proposed test, weighted based on a variety of injuries, would credit vehicles that pass with as little as 60%.

But what can the task force do about this?

Locally, the task force has the potential to make meaningful change to a street long viewed as problematic.

City Councilwoman Sue AnderBois, who heads the panel, wants to see short-term safety measures put in place, but she said she's reluctant to implement more substantial changes that may be later undone. Among her first orders of business is securing safety data for the street, which could come in the form of police statistics on enforcement.

"There is data that exists, at least from the last few weeks," she said. "We're trying to figure out what other data exists or that we could quickly get … so that we can just start to move forward."

AnderBois hopes the task force will be able to avoid bureaucratic red tape that would slow changes to the street.

"Government really likes studies," AnderBois said. "We don’t want to do anything wrong, and I think the wrong thing here would be inaction. The worst path is to do nothing."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: How North Main Street's design is killing pedestrians in Providence