A pedestrian crosses the busy intersection at Reservoir and Park avenues in Cranston on Wednesday. In November 2008, an elderly woman was struck and killed at this intersection.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island has one of the highest proportions of pedestrian fatalities in the nation, according to a new study, along with one of the highest proportions of fatalities among elderly persons.

On the other hand, the study by Washington-based Transportation for America gives the state good marks for trying to improve safety. It found that the state spent a larger proportion of its federal money on pedestrian and bicycle projects between 2005 and 2008 than any other state.

It also found that the metropolitan area including Providence, Fall River and New Bedford is safer for pedestrians than most such areas in the country.

Transportation for America is a coalition of a long list of housing, business, environmental, public health and transportation groups and public officials at all levels of government.

The study is called “Dangerous by Design” and says that many pedestrian fatalities in traffic accidents are avoidable. More than half of them, it says, are caused by bad road design, where transportation officials have catered to cars while ignoring pedestrians by leaving out sidewalks, crosswalks and crossing signals to squeeze in more lanes.

The study used a variety of measures to identify states and metro areas with better or worse pedestrian safety records and to compare spending on programs to benefit pedestrians. The study was based primarily on analysis of data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration and the Census.

Nationally, the study says, more than 9,000 pedestrians were killed by cars and trucks in 2007-08.

Rhode Island reported 25 pedestrian fatalities in those years, a tiny number compared with larger states. However, after accounting for population differences, Rhode Island had the fourth largest proportion of traffic deaths that were pedestrians — 19 percent.

Only Hawaii, New York and New Jersey were higher, falling between 20 percent and 22.5 percent. That means Rhode Island also had the highest proportion of pedestrian fatalities in New England.

Rhode Island also had a high proportion of pedestrian fatalities involving the elderly, compared with other states. The state ranked fourth in the nation, with 3.4 deaths per 100,000 persons 65 or older. That was the highest rate in New England. The states with higher rates were Hawaii, California and New York.

Janis Loiselle, the administrator of the state Office of Highway Safety, said she couldn’t explain the high fatality rates in Rhode Island compared with other states. In general, she said, since there are so few pedestrian fatalities here, it’s easy for the Rhode Island statistics to be distorted by small year-to-year changes in the number of incidents.

She said her agency is trying to reduce the number of fatalities among the elderly by teaching them, for example, how to cross a street safely. One helpful technique, she said, is making eye contact with an approaching driver. She also said she’s planning to try to make elderly persons more visible by distributing small orange flags for them to carry.

While it had high proportions of pedestrian fatalities, Rhode Island also spent large amounts on traffic safety, the study says. From 2005 to 2008, it spent 4.2 percent of its available federal aid, or $6.12 per person, on pedestrian and bicycle projects, the study says.

The study’s approach makes it difficult to address Rhode Island communities except at the state level.

It looked at 52 metropolitan areas across the country with populations greater than 1 million, a group including Providence. However, the metro area it studied included Fall River and New Bedford along with Providence, making it unclear how each of the cities’ data affected the results.

To compare metropolitan areas’ pedestrian safety records, the authors constructed a “pedestrian danger index” calculated using the pedestrian fatality rate and the percentage of commuters walking to work.

For example, the combination of many fatalities and few people walking to work was taken to mean that walking is dangerous in that metro area. An area with many walkers and fewer fatalities, on the other hand, was judged safer.

By that measure, the Providence-Fall River-New Bedford metro area fares well nationally but less so regionally. The Providence area is ranked as safer than 41 of the 52 metro areas. However, both of the other New England metro areas studied, Boston and Hartford, were safer still.

The study says that the four most dangerous metro areas for walking in 2007-2008 are all in Florida, including Orlando, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. The other most dangerous areas were also largely in the South.

A theme of the study report is that although federal programs have shifted toward financing pedestrian-friendly improvements, pedestrians still get short shrift compared with drivers. Transportation spending overwhelmingly benefits interests other than pedestrians’, it says.

BY THE NUMBERSWhen walking isn’t healthy

Many of Rhode Island’s fatal accidents involve pedestrians.134

Traffic fatalities in

2007 and 2008 25

Pedestrian fatalities 19%

Percent of RI traffic deaths involving pedestrians 11.8%

Percent of US traffic deaths involving pedestrians

blandis@projo.com