“The right of way doesn’t just belong to cars — it belongs to pedestrians and bicyclists as well,” said Secretary LaHood in a recent statement. “The DOT Safety Council is going to look at this report and work with advocacy groups to ensure our streets are as safe as possible.”

The report, “Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods),” highlight a simple, but startling fact — since 1994, there have been more than 76,000 preventable pedestrian deaths. Also included in the report, which was co-produced by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, Transportation for America and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, is the well-known walking school bus program that is becoming more and more popular thanks to the federal Safe Routes to School Program.

Transportation for America also presented Secretary LaHood with a petition signed by more than 4,000 people since the report’s release a week ago, which includes a rating system for the most dangerous U.S. city for walking, with Orlando-Kissimmee, Fla., at the top of the list. The information was calculated after reviewing fatality numbers from 2007-2008.

The DOT Safety Council was created at the end of October to address the safety issues facing the department’s 10 operating administrations and will nurture open dialogue about common inter-agency issues and give administrators a forum to discuss them.

“The Council will enhance the department’s safety culture which should then resonate out into industry,” said DOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari in a statement.