That number would be high for any North Carolina city, but this university town takes its walkability and bikeability very seriously.

Chapel Hill hadn't had a pedestrian die from being hit by a car since 2002. No cyclist had been killed by a vehicle since before 1997, according to state Department of Transportation figures.

As the Triangle grapples with increasing traffic and wider highways, it also needs to figure out how pedestrians and bicyclists fit in.

"It usually takes engineering, education and enforcement ... to have a comprehensive safety program," said Vance Barham, the DOT division traffic engineer for the area that includes Chapel Hill.

All three accidents happened in the dark on state-maintained busy highways unwelcoming to pedestrians or bicyclists. The two pedestrians were crossing busy four-lane highways at intersections that had traffic signals but no crosswalks.

"If you don't have a [pedestrian] signal, you have to watch for the traffic and then you have to walk [while watching for traffic]," said Kumar Neppalli, Chapel Hill's traffic engineer.

An accident killed a man in Raleigh this past October when he was trying to cross Interstate 440 (the Beltline) near New Bern Avenue. And a Durham high school student was killed in the early-morning darkness in September when she was hit by an SUV while walking to school.

Bicyclists also have been killed. In Durham last January, a Hillside High School student died after a collision with a bus in the school parking lot.

This week, before the charter bus carrying Boston College's men's basketball team knocked him off his bike and threw him into the grass, Harry Alston was trying to share a pothole-ridden section of shoulderless highway lane with vehicles that should have been traveling the 45-mph speed limit.

Traffic engineers from the state and the town plan to investigate where each accident happened and figure out what, if anything, can be done to make those stretches of road safer.

The town is responsible for making sure traffic signals are working properly, Neppalli said, while the state maintains the roads and crosswalks.

Neppalli said Chapel Hill has previously asked the DOT to install a crosswalk and walk signals at Manning Drive and Fordham Boulevard, the scene of Wednesday's accident.

About 8:20 p.m. that night, David Galinsky, 71, died crossing those four lanes of traffic near that intersection on his way to see the Tar Heels play at the Smith Center.

Installing a crosswalk and walk signal on one side of the intersection would cost about $15,000, Barham estimated.

But Barham said Chapel Hill has never asked to have them installed at Manning Drive.

"I know we've added some additional devices along [U.S.] 15-501 in several locations at the town's request, but I don't remember that being one of them," he said.