rarely enforced traffic laws.

      In San Jose, city officials recently hired consultants to design safer
      walking routes to all of its schools. In Santa Barbara, a civic group
      called the Livable Streets Coalition just persuaded city leaders to give
      residents a strong role in setting neighborhood speed limits for the first
      time. In Orange County, where speed limits on many roads were raised a
      decade ago, some local governments are now so apprehensive about
      pedestrian safety that they are warning people to avoid some areas on foot
      until they find ways to calm traffic.

      Last fall, California approved a $40 million plan to help counties improve
      pedestrian safety, especially near schools. This year, some state
      lawmakers are proposing measures to make it harder for motorists to fight
      speeding tickets. Others want to amend the state vehicle code to make
      drivers more liable for accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists.
      Statewide, pedestrians now get blamed in most incidents.

      Even in car-crazed Los Angeles, where life as a pedestrian is a kind of
      extreme sport, there are signs of increasing vigilance. The police
      department is sending squads of officers on motorcycles or in plain
      clothes to crosswalks to nab motorists driving with disregard for people
      on foot. On one Hollywood corner not long ago, police issued nearly 100
      citations in six hours to motorists who did not give pedestrians in a
      crosswalk the right of way.

      Nationally, a new nonprofit group known as America Walks is forming
      chapters in metropolitan areas such Boston, New York and Washington to
      clamor for pedestrian rights. In Portland, Ore., demonstrators have been
      gathering every few months in downtown crosswalks at rush hour and using
      signs and chants to plead with motorists to calm down. In the suburbs of
      northern New Jersey, grass-roots groups--one is called BRAKES--are
      pressing local governments to slow traffic and conduct "walkability
      audits" of business areas.

      The cause is also gaining momentum in Washington's suburbs. In Northern
      Virginia, Fairfax and Manassas are creating or widening sidewalks and
      lowering speed limits to help revitalize business corridors. In Maryland,
      a coalition of pedestrians in Bethesda is preaching caution to motorists
      by hanging banners and fliers in its business district. At the urging of
      Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D), Maryland lawmakers have increased spending
      for pedestrian paths.

      "People who want to walk are tired of being afraid of drivers, especially
      in all these new sprawling suburbs," said Ellen Vanderslice, a Portland,
      Ore., resident who leads America Walks.
      "Communities are deciding that we've given too much of our public spaces
      over to automobiles," said Martin Robbins, the director of a
      transportation policy institute at Rutgers University. "They want more balance."

      Yet in some ways the protests are rooted as much in perception as in reality.

      According to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics, the number of
      pedestrians killed or injured in traffic crashes has declined by about 6