Walkability has been on my mind a lot since our Oct. 5 Power Breakfast on the future of transportation. No doubt Des Moines can make some improvements to encourage walking and biking, but with an increase in pedestrian traffic comes unintended problems. And sometimes the problems are the pedestrians themselves. Just ask Pittsburgh. The city has seen a spike of pedestrian-related accidents — 297 last year — many the result of distracted walkers busily multitasking by checking email and websites on their phones. So the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is spending $50,000 to take both a high-tech and, well, we’ll say creative approach to reducing pedestrian accidents. From thePittsburgh-Post Gazette: “For the next few weeks, improvisational actors dressed as the Grim Reaper and zombies will wander around the Golden Triangle and surprise pedestrians who are looking at their cell phones rather than watching traffic around them. In addition, through a special program called geofencing, pedestrians viewing certain browsers at busy intersections will receive a push alert on their cell phones to look up. … (Also,) the Grim Reaper might ask distracted walkers, “Are you flirting with me?” and offer them a “Get out of Death Free” card that includes the Look Alive website.” Perhaps it won’t be long before we’ll see Downtown Community Alliance President Gene Meyer dressed as the Grim Reaper at the corner of Court Avenue and Third Street. Halloween is just around the corner, after all.