The streets of Colorado Springs proved especially dangerous last year.

With three times as many pedestrian deaths as in 2011, traffic fatalities shot up 29 percent in 2012, making it the second most deadly year on city streets in the past 16 years.

Colorado Springs recorded 28 deadly traffic crashes resulting in 32 deaths last year. In 2000, there were 34 traffic-related deaths.

Eleven of those crashes involved pedestrians and claimed the lives of 13 people, the highest number of pedestrian deaths in at least the last 12 years.

“We’re asking everybody just to pay attention and be more alert and cautious to their driving,” police Lt. Brian Ritz of the Specialized Enforcement Division said.

Among the deadly crashes:

Ritz said the 13 pedestrian deaths last year, up from four the year before, contributed to the spike in traffic fatalities in 2012.

“If those hadn’t been in there, we’d probably be running pretty much average on the vehicle fatalities,” he said.

In seven of the 11 crashes involving pedestrians last year, the pedestrian was at fault, police said.

In six crashes, alcohol or drugs were used, including by four of the victims and two of the drivers, police said.

Motorcycle fatalities dropped from 10 in 2011 to six last year. Among the fatalities was motorcycle officer Matt Tyner, who was killed July 24 when his motorcycle collided with a vehicle on Austin Bluffs Parkway between Oro Blanco and Old Farm drives.

Ritz, who supervises the motorcycle enforcement and major accident units, said small teams of motorcycle officers will be more visible on intersections with higher numbers of crashes.

“We’ve done some changes in deployment schemes for our motorcycles to where you’re going to start seeing small groups of officers hitting high impact traffic locations,” he said.“We’re still limited by the fact that we still have to address school zones in the morning and evening. But we do what we can.”

There have been four traffic-related deaths in the city so far this year.

“If drivers, passengers and pedestrians would all work together, we can avoid setting any new record high fatality rate,” police said.—Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623Twitter @danieljchaconFacebook Daniel Chacon