Minneapolis-St. Paul one of the safest cities for pedestrians

Keep walking, Minneapolis.

​The Twin Cities gets lots of love for being so bike-friendly, and a recent study found that it's actually pretty good for commuter car traffic. Now, it turns out we're also one of safest cities for walkers in America.

Screw looking both ways before you cross the street!

Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of the safest pedestrian cities in the United States, according to a new study from Transportation for America. The study ranked the Twin Cities 48th out of 52 major metro areas in the "Pedestrian Danger Index." That is, if you flip the study order from most dangerous to least dangerous,Minneapolis-St. Paul is the fifth-safest place to walk.

The Twin Cities rates well thanks to a relatively high percentage of citizens who walk to work, and a low number of pedestrian fatalities. The study does not account for "Minnesota nice" drivers literally stopping, right in the middle of the road, to let someone cross the street, but that probably plays into it.

The worst places to walk -- and live, in general, really -- are all in Florida.

No, seriously. All of them. In order, the top four most dangerous metro areas for pedestrians in the United States are Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, and Miami.

And don't worry about getting hit while you do.

​In the Orlando area, where only 1.2 percent of people walk to work, 557 pedestrians were killed between the years 2000 and 2009. During the same time period, Minneapolis-St. Paul -- with almost twice as many people walking to work each day -- saw 254 pedestrian deaths.

Joining the Twin Cities down at the bottom of the "Most Dangerous" list are a couple of surprises, considering the cities' reputations for less-than-friendly drivers. The New York City metro area is the third-safest, with 6 percent of people walking to work, and 3,500 fatalities -- or 1.9 per 100,000 people -- in the 2000s.

The safest city of all for walkers is Boston.  Exactly 5 percent of Bostonians walk to work each day, and with only 483 pedestrian fatalities last decade, the city rates as more than 10 times safer than Orlando. And don't get them started on the IQ difference.

Transportation for America has posted an exhaustive interactive map of all pedestrian deaths from 2000 through 2009.

The main map, which allows you to type in any location across the U.S., is found HERE.

To navigate 2000-2009 pedestrian deaths in Minneapolis-St. Paul, click HERE.

Related:

• Minneapolis ranked 9th most walkable city in the U.S.
• Minneapolis among top 10 cities for bike commuting
• Study: Stop complaining about traffic, it's not that bad