According to data provided to the Bicycle Coalition by the Philadelphia Police, 53 people have been killed in traffic violence so far this year, 10 of whom lost their lives on Roosevelt Boulevard.

The Philadelphia Police regularly provides the Bicycle Coalition with statistical updates so we can keep our PHLtrafficvictims.org page up to date. Other than periodical updates from the Philadelphia Police Department, we update with media reports.

This year has been particularly bad for pedestrians and drivers on Roosevelt Boulevard, who, according to our counts, make up nearly 19 percent of total fatalities in Philadelphia.

Roosevelt Boulevard is Philadelphia’s most dangerous street, and it usually accounts for about 10 percent of traffic fatalities in the city. We are on the trajectory to nearly double that this year.

A pedestrian was killed on Roosevelt Boulevard as recently as Monday evening.

As most who regularly read this blog will recall, the Bicycle Coalition and our partners in the Vision Zero Alliance spent the last two years working for an automated speed enforcement program on Roosevelt Boulevard, as part of the city’s much larger Vision Zero efforts.

This year, we’ve come closer than ever before to getting the automated enforcement campaign passed into law.

Senate Bill 172, which would have allowed Philadelphia to test a speed camera program, was passed by the House, then the Senate, then went back to the House—where it stalled and was not brought up for a vote.

Speed cameras have been proven to make streets safer where they are tried, reducing injurious crashes by about 25 percent in most cases.

Not passing this bill before the Legislature went on summer recess was appalling. We are continuing to advocate and bring in new supporters for this legislation to make sure it passes when the House and Senate come back from summer recess, in the fall.