Contribution of the sidewalks in enhancing pedestrian safety

Context and background The paper explores the contribution of the constructed sidewalks towards enhancing pedestrian safety along the major roads in Dar es Salaam. Although there has been a rapid increase in vehicle ownership in recent years, walking remains to be the most common employed mode of travel to the majority in various parts of the world, including Dar es Salaam city. In most instances, pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users to be severely affected in the occurrence of road accidents. The city has implemented a number of strategies to ensure safety for the pedestrians, such as marking the roads with zebra crossings and constructing pedestrian overpasses across the major highways together with the provision of sidewalks, which separates them from motorized traffic. Despite the presence of the few constructed sidewalks besides the major roads in Dar es Salaam, yet scant literature exists in terms of their performance as to what extent they have contributed towards enhancing pedestrian safety. Goal and Objectives: The overall objective of this study is to examine the contribution of the sidewalks in enhancing pedestrian safety through analyzing the conditions of the sidewalks and trend of the pedestrian accidents before and after the construction of the sidewalks at (Ubungo - Magomeni section) along Morogoro road. Methodology: The case study strategy was adopted in this study so as to investigate the contemporary phenomena within the real context, using various sources of evidence from the field. Data was collected through observation, formal interviews, together with questionnaires addressed to 73 pedestrians, a traffic officer, a town planner, and a transport engineer from Ubungo and Kinondoni Municipal Council. Results: Findings from this research revealed that the sidewalks have positively contributed towards enhancing pedestrian safety due to the decrease in the number of pedestrian accidents to more than 50.8%, regardless of the challenges such as surface irregularities, motorized traffic intrusion, blockage by street vending activities, and malfunctioning streetlights that are still faced by the pedestrians. Also, the magnitude of precaution measures to be taken by pedestrians is still low, thus there is still number of casualties which tend to occur even in recent years.