This weblog follows the profitable installations of quick-build tasks on to make roads safer in three tribal communities, work that was jumpstarted by a roundtable funded by the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention to debate tribal pedestrian security.
In 2022, over 7,500 pedestrians misplaced their lives on America’s roadways. The tragedy of street fatalities disproportionately impacts American Indian and Alaska Native folks, who’re greater than 4 instances as more likely to be struck and killed by autos whereas strolling.
Pace is a important think about whether or not a collision is deadly. In most rural tribal reservations, autos journey at excessive speeds, and there are normally no sidewalks. Native People residing in city and suburban areas face comparable points with unsafe locations to stroll.
In December 2022, the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention funded a gathering to debate tribal pedestrian security. The group targeted on the next downside assertion: Tribal communities are sometimes bisected by county, state, or interstate highways with high-speed visitors, which create security, well being, and quality-of-life issues for residents.
The roundtable jumpstarted important work in tribal communities. This dialogue led to tribal leaders securing new funding from a Street to Zero grant from the Nationwide Security Council to enhance pedestrian security. These efforts included short-term tasks, referred to as “fast builds,” which made roads safer by including in narrower lanes, extra seen sidewalks, and visible design components that sluggish visitors. The short builds additionally concerned neighborhood funding, as residents of all ages are invited to take part.
Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico
Throughout a follow-up webinar in 2024, Sheri Bozic, Director of Planning Growth and Transportation Division with Pueblo of Jemez, described their efforts to enhance pedestrian security. For the final 5 years, New Mexico has had the very best variety of pedestrian deaths per capita within the U.S. Many individuals stroll alongside the shoulders of highways, arterials, and aspect streets, and there’s a distinct lack of sidewalks and lighting.
Positioned between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, the Pueblo of Jemez has a inhabitants of three,900, New Mexico State Street 4 divides the village and poses a critical security threat.
The Pueblo of Jemez has been engaged on tasks to extend the security of individuals strolling and biking. In 2024, the Pueblo of Jemez accomplished the Hemish Path to Wellness, a pedestrian path subsequent to the freeway. Leaders on the challenge used crash and velocity information to point out the necessity for safer strolling paths.
Different tasks to extend security for folks strolling and biking embrace a fast construct on Day College Street, a large, fast-moving street in entrance of a Pueblo college that teaches Kindergarten to sixth grade. College students and neighborhood members painted planters with flowers to assist sluggish visitors. Since its completion, street speeds, beforehand two to 3 instances the velocity restrict, have declined.
They put in radar velocity indicators to decelerate visitors and constructed monuments on the entrances to the tribal lands to remind drivers to scale back their velocity.
The Pueblo additionally organized a fast construct strolling path with two crosswalks alongside Sheep Springs Circle, a residential “loop” street and the positioning of frequent complaints about dashing autos. In April 2025, dozens of residents gathered for a workshop to finish a neighborhood street security survey and help with the fast construct. Residents, together with kids from the neighborhood, measured and striped crosswalks and put in a protected strolling path alongside the street. Planters and sidewalk chalk artwork helped to finish the redesign by creating visible components to sluggish driving speeds.
Throughout a networking occasion that adopted the workshop and fast construct, Arlando Teller, member of the Navajo Nation, Assistant Secretary for Tribal Affairs underneath President Biden, and former Arizona State Consultant, noticed:
“The idea of planting for us right here within the southwest is sacred:
You plant your legacy,
You plant to eat, You plant to feed,
You plant to commune, You plant to deliver household collectively.
That’s necessary — so after I heard that, it meant one thing to me,
That you just all received your fingers soiled.”
Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma
Hillary Mead, a Major Prevention Program Supervisor with Cherokee Nation Public Well being, targeted on Secure Routes to College tasks and mentioned comparable efforts to enhance pedestrian security and mobility on the Cherokee Nation reservation in Oklahoma. The Cherokee Nation has about 140,000 residents unfold throughout almost 73,000 acres in 14 counties. From 2017-2022, Cherokee Nation skilled 55 fatalities and 260 accidents.
Whereas there are some city areas, Cherokee Nation is generally rural. One county is completely divided by a railroad, with a faculty on one aspect and housing on the opposite, which means that children stroll throughout the tracks day by day. The overall lack of protected locations for folks to stroll makes reaching faculties, neighborhood facilities, grocery shops, and different important places extraordinarily troublesome and harmful.
In partnership with the Oklahoma Division of Transportation, and with assist from a $500,000 Secure Streets for All grant, Cherokee Nation is working in the direction of bettering pedestrian security. For one highschool that makes use of a area throughout a fast-moving avenue with no pedestrian infrastructure for band and soccer observe, challenge leaders created new crosswalks to boost visibility. The challenge grew from there, resulting in the acquisition of flashing signage and the profitable petitioning of the Stilwell Metropolis council to designate the world as a brand new college zone.
These efforts led to the publication of a Tribal Pedestrian Security Useful resource Library, which incorporates reality sheets, public consciousness campaigns, technical toolkits, pattern insurance policies, and coaching applications for communities and professionals.
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Montana
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Tribal Well being Division partnered with the College of Montana to advertise bodily exercise amongst older adults residing on the Flathead Reservation. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes dwell on 1.3 million acres of the Flathead Reservation, with 31,000 residents, 8,000 of that are Native American. 22% of these residing on the reservation are age 65 or older, which is greater than the nationwide common. Lack of protected locations to stroll poses a major security problem for these residents.
Maja Pederson, PhD, a Analysis Assistant Professor with the College of Montana College of Public and Neighborhood Well being Sciences and a 2021 Nationwide Strolling Faculty graduate, mentioned the challenge’s strategy by means of the lens of the Rising Older Staying Stronger Initiative, a community-based participatory analysis challenge to advertise bodily exercise safety amongst Native American older adults residing on the Flathead Reservation. With the ability to entry protected, fulfilling bodily exercise not solely helps residents meet their well being wants — it additionally helps to advertise bodily and emotional well-being and social connectedness for an energetic, wholesome life.
In August 2025, quick-build visitors calming tasks have been applied in St. Ignatius, Montana, at two intersections. This effort arose from a partnership with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Cherokee Nation. The websites have been chosen primarily based on neighborhood suggestions gathered utilizing the Stanford Our Voice public engagement instrument. The neighborhood got here collectively to create crosswalk artwork at each quick-build websites, one in all which options flowers which can be culturally vital to the tribes of the Flathead Reservation.
This publication was made doable by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) (Contract #47QRAA20D003W). Its contents are solely the duty of the authors and don’t essentially signify the official views of CDC. These efforts are a part of the CDC’s Energetic Folks, Wholesome NationSM Initiative that’s working to assist 27 million People turn out to be extra bodily energetic by 2027.
