MINNEAPOLIS — According to data from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, pedestrian fatalities are up this year compared to last. To date, Minnesota has seen seven deaths involving a pedestrian, up from six in the same time frame last year.
This includes multiple incidents with Metro Transit buses. Earlier this week, a man was hit and killed just before 1 a.m. in St. Paul after stepping in front of a bus. In January, a child was hit and killed while in an intersection in Brooklyn Park in the early morning.
"Driving or walking down the street tends to be one of the most dangerous things that we can do on a day," Tyler Allis, a CDL Navigator at Riverland Community College, said.
He recognizes that there could be all sorts of factors that led to both incidents, including the time of day – and the weight of the bus.
"They could weigh up to, you know, 25, 30, maybe even more than 30,000 pounds depending on the cargo and the occupants that are inside," Allis said. "Things change in an instant just like that."
So we asked Metro Transit – what happened to cause these incidents. Brian Funk with Metro Transit says they're still investigating, but the time of day may have been a factor.
"We know that a couple of our collisions occurred either very late at night or very early in the morning," Funk said. "And so there's potential that lighting may have played a role."
Funk says they have also looked into the possibility of installing pedestrian-detecting technology, and have set aside money in their budget to look at that.
"We're digging into that this year," he said. "Like many new automobiles that people purchase, it's something that we can start to add to our equipment coming up."