With a string of pedestrian fatalities grabbing headlines in recent days, it may seem like stepping off the curb is more dangerous than ever. But city statistics say otherwise.Even with four people in as many days killed just crossing the street, the city Department of Transportation said the number of fatal accidents in the city is the lowest in almost a century. The victims of the recent fatalities represented a broad spectrum of the city's population.They included Hannah Engle, an NYU grad student, who was hit by an alleged drunk driver of Second Avenue and Andrea Bronfman, an heiress killed while taking her dog for an early morning walk on Fifth Avenue.Also killed were Sandra Frempong, of Newark, who was struck by a beer truck as she stepped off the curb on W. 44th Street and Eva Schweizer, an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor died after she slipped and fell in front of an oncoming bus in the Bronx.The city says there is no upsurge in pedestrian fatalities.According to the most recent figures from the Department of Transportation, 152 pedestrians were killed by drivers in 2005—the lowest figure since 1910.But for some observers, the city is not doing enough despite the historic low in pedestrian deaths."The fact of the matter is nobody should be killed walking across the street," said Amy Pfeiffer of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists."It's fabulous that there is less of these deaths and debilitating injuries, but what the city has done is very, very minor."For it's part, the city disagrees, saying the decline in accidents and pedestrian fatalities is the result of traffic-calming measures along streets that were notoriously dangerous to walkers and cyclists.Among other suggestions to make the streets safer, Transportation Alternatives has three main recommendations:

• Give people more time to cross the street.
• Program more crosswalk signals to give pedestrians exclusive time to cross the street while cars wait to make a turn.
• Extend curbs farther into streets through "neckdowns" so cars must make wider turns around corners.