There are many ways you could measure the health of a city — its air quality index, its population growth, the number of jobs it added last year. My favorite is one not often high on the priority lists of city governments in the US: How safe is it to walk? The US has the grievous distinction among peer countries as being one of the most dangerous places in the developed world for walking down the street. American pedestrians are killed by cars at three times the rate of Canadians, four times the rate of Brits and Australians, and more than 13 times the rate of Norwegians. Last month, we finally got a bit of good news about pedestrian safety in America: About 11 percent fewer pedestrians were killed in the first half of 2025 — an estimated 3,024 people total — compared to the same period the previous year, according to a preliminary report published by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). That striking drop tracks a broader decline in total US car crash deaths last year.…