Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management (2019)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

D-1 A P P E N D I X D Interview Summaries Arlington, Virginia Arlington relies on systematic policies and programs to implement their speed-reduction efforts. Many of these policies are implemented through their regularly updated master plans (sector plans) for the areas around each Metro station—these plans have lane width, sidewalk width, pedestrian amenities, and roadway standards. In addition, Arlington has an adopted Complete Street policy that promotes lower speeds and pedestrian amenities. Throughout Arlington, the speed limit is 25 mph unless designated otherwise. There are only a few roads with 30 to 35 mph speeds, and the county can reduce its own roadway speeds to 25 mph without state approval. Arlington’s traffic engineering group is becoming more aware and responsive to bicycle and pedestrian safety needs, but is still hindered by traditional traffic modeling and achieving traditional level of service goals. The County partners with the police department for targeting activities, but much of the outreach around bicyclist and pedestrian safety efforts and street improvement projects is done by Arlington County Commuter Services, the area’s transportation demand management organization. They complete measurements and reports on pedestrian and vehicle safety, trends, and transportation impacts. Civic/neighborhood associations have also contributed to advocating for (or against) projects. Arlington has a specific outreach coordinator who coaches, attends, and strategizes outreach activities related to pedestrian safety efforts to help the community better understand and offer feedback on projects. Arlington has significantly cut back on how many projects are evaluated—4 to 5 years ago, nearly all projects would have their speeds measured before and after, as well as volumes in the project area and potential diverter streets. Now, the measurements are done on a project-by-project basis only if the project is proposed as a speed-reduction project. When working with the State to reduce speeds, Arlington begins with approved guidelines of 10-ft lanes, 11 ft for curb lanes, and would like more flexibility to reduce speeds to under 25 mph. The state speed- reduction process is resource intensive and is usually focused on having a complete story and design that aligns with state criteria. Because of the required effort, a consultant is usually brought in to assist with the application.

D-2 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management Calgary has also used simplification to reduce speed. Initially, the City had playground and school zones, with different hours and levels of compliance. The issue that the City was trying to solve was reducing the number of kids who were being hit in darkness. As such, the City increased the regulatory times for the school zones to match with playground zones (7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and changed the school zones to playground zones. This change, with accompanying enforcement and educational campaigns, successfully reduced mean speeds and collisions. Calgary measures speed reduction through a variety of metrics, most notably maximum, minimum, average, and 85th percentile speeds. In addition, the City conducts video-based conflict analyses in certain locations to better understand what conflict is causing the collisions. These measures and the video analysis help the City identify deficiencies based on outcomes, not standards or complaints. From their efforts, they have found that harmonizing speed-zone times had the most dramatic impact on speed reduction. City staff struggle with Alberta’s default residential speed limit of 50 kph (just over 30 mph). With this limit, any lowering, which is desired, results in a lot of signage and visual clutter. A recent City of Calgary Charter enables the City to establish a bylaw to amend the unposted residential speed limit and discussions are underway regarding how to successfully transition to lower operating speeds. Chicago, Illinois Chicago’s efforts started in 2012 and 2013 with the adoption of the Chicago Pedestrian Plan and Complete Streets Design Guidelines. These plans placed pedestrians at the top of the transportation hierarchy and put walking as the first consideration for planning, design, and right-of-way changes. These plans were followed by Chicago becoming a Vision Zero city in 2016 and beginning to implement their Vision Zero action plan and strategies in 2017. A goal to reduce speed-related crashes by 25% was called out in the Vision Zero plan. Chicago has primarily used design to slow people down. The City has a default speed of 30 mph, but streets are designed for 5 to 30 mph, where 30 mph would be the fastest a driver would naturally go, independent of congestion. Bike lanes have been implemented as vehicle-lane size is reduced, and pedestrian islands may be built in areas where there is an expressed desire not to have bike lanes (as well as in the following scenarios: road diets, lane narrowing, and utilizing existing painted medians). The goal of either is to visually and physically narrow the street and signal to drivers that there is more going on that they need to watch and slow down for. Staff have taken an approach of starting small with design and then adding to it as necessary, in order to not use valuable resources when a smaller fix may solve the issue. Calgary, Alberta, Canada Calgary’s speed-reduction efforts are addressed in several adopted plans and formal efforts such as the Calgary Safer Mobility Plan and the Calgary Pedestrian Strategy. The Safer Mobility Plan was initiated by senior administration officials and driven by concerns over the city’s crash rate (nearly one per day, 10 to 15 pedestrian fatalities a year). The Calgary Pedestrian Strategy identifies the need to be able to conduct a blanket reduction in speed, something that is not currently possible due to provincial limitations. These plans are used to support the City’s Traffic-calming program, which aims to reduce speeds in residential areas through the use of infrastructure such as medians, curb extensions, and intersection design.

Interview Summaries D-3 or geographically representative of the neighbors who live in the communities where many of the projects are going in and, as such, are often seen as outsiders pushing another “government knows best” project on historically underserved populations. In addition, many residents do not believe that vehicle speeds are an issue, so many projects seem unnecessary. Staff are working to change their outreach approach and work to define the problem with the community versus presenting the problem to the community. Chicago’s speed-reduction efforts are also hindered by state regulations, which are more applicable to rural roads than urban streets (although 40% of Chicago’s streets are state roads). A lack of clarity about allowable speed-reduction efforts and countermeasures also hinders progress toward speed management. Durham, North Carolina Durham became a Vision Zero city in 2017 and has yet to implement formally any speed-reduction actions from their plan. That said, the adoption of Vision Zero and the growth occurring in Durham has started to mobilize the community to a place where they expect to see pedestrians and are starting to be more concerned about pedestrian safety. This momentum was also affected by a new transportation director who came from another Vision Zero city with experience and ideas about speed reduction for pedestrian safety. Durham has a wide variety of advocacy groups, including a bike and pedestrian advisory committee, and three committees under the Vision Zero program. With all these groups in formal advisory committee roles, as well as resident input, the City has struggled to not be led by complaints, but instead by creating a proactive, data-driven program. Durham has implemented narrower vehicle-lane size (10 ft), signage, and pavement markings to try and reduce speeds. They do measure before and after speeds, crash rates, diversion, and bike/pedestrian counts for any new installation. Measurements have shown that pavement markings and signage, and the changing of the horizontal and vertical topography have noticeable impacts. These areas are within the same purview as design staff—the transportation department has their own pavement, marking, and signal crews, so can do most changes in-house. Durham staff noted that, although the state DOT has policies supportive of lowering vehicle speeds and pedestrian safety, few of these policies are put into practice. As such, the City is cautious when promoting lower speeds and pedestrian safety efforts to the state and looks to back up speed-reduction proposals with traffic modeling, policy support, and data. Between 2010 and 2013, Chicago identified over 70 miles of high-crash corridors and has focused their efforts on reducing crashes on these streets. While many of these efforts have reduced crashes, actual before and after metrics have been limited. Often, the City prioritizes measuring a project’s impacts if they know it is going to be controversial. They often look at the percentage of people going over 30 mph, bike and pedestrian counts, crashes, and travel times. The City just initiated electronic crash reporting so crash data are available immediately, versus having a one-year lag time. On some projects, city staff have struggled with community support in their speed-reduction efforts, often having neighbors actively oppose projects. One reason is that the City staff are not always racially

D-4 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management Prior to 2015, residential streets were designed with 12-ft lanes and arterials with 12- to 14-ft lanes. They have since striped roadways to National Association of City Transportation Officials design standards, with a standard 10-ft lane width and 11 ft for outer travel lanes on truck or bus routes that do not have a buffered bikeway. Prioritizing these improvements was done through closely working with the paving and maintenance group, and cross-referencing where maintenance needed to be done with high-crash streets. Overall, these efforts were able to improve pavement quality, narrow lanes, and add an improved bikeway network with the “new” space from narrowing vehicle lanes. Fremont attributes much of its success to a consistently engaged police department. Once it was agreed upon that reducing speed was a priority, the police determined that their patrolling structure was not as effective as it should be. Their primary speed enforcement group—the motorcycle unit—enforced during daytime hours, but most speed-related crashes occur between 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. In response, existing evening patrols were crosstrained to do traffic enforcement and additional radar equipment was purchased. Since this change, the city has nearly tripled the number of traffic stops and works to focus on warnings and education instead of citations where possible. As mentioned above, most crashes in Fremont were happening between 6:00 and 10:00 p.m., many of which were pedestrians being hit on major streets (some crossing legally and some jaywalking). Visibility was cited as a factor in these crashes and, as a response, the City took advantage of a scheduled retrofit to replace streetlights with brighter and more energy efficient LED luminaries. Since the retrofit, the number or nighttime pedestrian injuries has dropped from 10 (2015) to 2 (2017). Fremont conducts routine monitoring of collision trends including crash severity, modes involved, collision factors, and speeds. That said, it is hard to identify which speed-reduction effort is having the largest impact because they have implemented many strategies at once. More data will be gathered as they reconfigure their roadways. In addition, the City will explore potential reductions in speed limits from lower operating speeds on reconfigured roadways as part of citywide speed surveys, which are required to be conducted at a minimum of every 7 years; the City plans to conduct more frequent speed surveys targeting safety priority corridors where travel lanes narrowing has been completed. In 2016, speed limits were reduced 5 mph on 12 roadway corridors following implementation of narrow lanes. An additional set of speed surveys is planned in 2018. Fremont, California Fremont became a Vision Zero city in 2015, the first medium-sized city to adopt Vision Zero. Fremont included strategic speed management-related actions as a part of its Vision Zero Action Plan after analyzing data and finding speed was a major factor in crashes—more than half of crashes in Fremont involved bicyclists or pedestrians, and 10% of their streets had 90% of fatalities. Prior to adopting Vision Zero, all pedestrian fatalities occurred on streets with speed limits of 40 mph or higher. Fremont has seen a 55% reduction in crashes on high-speed roads since implementing their Vision Zero action plan. Staff attribute most of the success to improvements in street design, support from the police department, and investments in street lighting:

Interview Summaries D-5 Fremont is also working to install radar feedback speed limit signs on safety priority corridors that collect and summarize data that can be used to target enforcement efforts further, and is supportive of efforts to allow ASE in the State. Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay’s speed-reduction efforts are a part of their overall traffic safety program, which is primarily addressed through their Neighborhood Traffic Calming program, and is being worked on through their Safe Routes for Non-Motorists (SRNM) plan. This upcoming plan essentially will be a Safe Routes to School plan that addresses bike–pedestrian issues across the entire city and not just school areas. The SRNM plan will include identifying areas for new bike lanes, retrofitted bike lanes, and reduced-width vehicle lanes. Many of their efforts are driven by resident complaints and informed by the County’s triannual crash analysis and the City’s annual signalized intersection crash summary. The City’s most prominent speed-reduction efforts are a result of building relationships between Public Works and the police force. Solutions requiring Common Council action that address resident and staff concerns are made through the City’s Traffic, Bicycle, and Pedestrian Commission (which also includes one elected official). Many of the concerns of motorists not yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks result in an enforcement and education action at a specific crosswalk location, known locally as “Operation: Frogger.” Last year they were unable to support crosswalk enforcement actions due to funding reprioritization—the funding for the program is from the state and competes against funding for driving- under-the-influence programs. City staff also look to build on efforts that are happening regionally. A neighboring city, De Pere, started a pedestrian crosswalk day last year and worked to get other regional cities involved for a more holistic effort. Green Bay participated this year in Crosswalk Enforcement Day, with education, enforcement, and communication efforts. Los Angeles, California Los Angeles’s speed-reduction efforts can be readily separated into strategies on smaller neighborhood streets such as speed humps and stop signs and those strategies on larger arterial streets such as road diets and signal timing adjustments. On those arterial streets where pedestrian safety is most critical due to higher speeds, Los Angeles has implemented dozens of road diets over the last several years, but has recently slowed the pace of implementing such projects, as they have run out of “low-hanging fruit” candidate street segments with modest or low traffic volumes, and community and political resistance has mounted against aggressively deploying more road diets, especially when delays to traffic may be a significant resultant impact. With road diets being deployed at a slower, deliberate pace, Los Angeles is focusing on smaller, “light- touch” projects, especially by adjusting signal timing. Their goal is not necessarily to target a certain speed, but to discourage speeding. Corridors with a high density of signals make the best candidates, Fremont aims to work with the state DOT to build bicycle and pedestrian facilities on state conventional highways and improve the design of freeway on/off ramps to encourage lower speed where they conflict with pedestrians. Additionally, City staff are currently working to have one of the three state highways that go through city limits relinquished to their department, so that they will have more control over design and operation to implement additional multimodal and speed-reduction improvements.

D-6 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management are slowing down as they approach the flashing yellow when compared to how fast they traveled previously on average when approaching steady green indications. Los Angeles’ other speed-reduction efforts include speed feedback signs. The city has nearly 350 of these signs; over half are on various corridors, which have been implemented on a case-by-case basis, either near schools or to address other speeding problems. The rest of the units have been specifically deployed on the Vision Zero Priority Corridors as part of a larger corridor strategy for a suite of safety improvements on these street segments. They have also employed thermoplastic rumble strips in places where speed limits change significantly and where chronic street racing has occurred in an effort to discourage such behavior. Both scenarios have seen favorable speed-reduction results. As part of Los Angeles’ Safe Routes to School program, they have piloted School Safety Zones, which are 15-mph speed limit zones around select schools, coupled with enforcement and education. With new projects, they aim to measure the changes in crash types, speeds, travel times, volumes, and diversion rates after the project has been implemented for a year. City staff have started to be intentional and strategic around outreach and communication as projects with significant impacts have become more challenging. In order to maximize return on outreach with limited resources, outreach plans for individual projects are formulated at the outset and aim to engage constituents early about the benefits and potential impacts. By educating, involving, and listening, outreach can be an essential component of project development. Nashville, Tennessee Nashville’s efforts were driven by public and political will. While about half of their transportation requests are speed reduction–related, the most visible and effective effort has been their “walking districts.” The discussion around walking districts was a response to community members and elected officials wanting to reduce the de facto county speed of 30 mph. City staff and elected officials realized that reducing the speed limit countywide was probably an unrealistic effort at the time, so instead identified three areas with varying land uses to pilot areawide speed reductions. Framing the speed reductions as a pilot helped gain political support, since it was seen as something that could easily be removed or stopped if necessary. Walking districts received new posted speed limit signage (generally 10 mph below the current speed), added pavement markings, and a walking district logo. The three neighborhoods were chosen because they had histories of residents submitting traffic-calming requests and participating in advocacy efforts around pedestrian safety. As such, implementing new speed limits did not encounter much resistance and, instead, was celebrated by the residents. They also exhibited different contextual characteristics, from urban to suburban. At the time of the interview, the walking districts had only existed for 6 months, so little data were available to show whether speed reductions occurred. That said, there was much anecdotal evidence that residents and visitors felt more comfortable walking in these areas. In addition, other since speed can be controlled over short distances. Los Angeles has expanded the use of “rest in red,” where lights will be red at a specified intersection in all directions until a vehicle triggers the signal to green, discouraging the complete free-flow of traffic, which often leads to excessive speeds, particularly during off-peak periods. Los Angeles has also employed a corridor strategy on some of its Vision Zero Priority Corridors, which involves using flashing yellow signal indications for traffic on the arterial in question during nighttime periods. Early evaluation has shown promising results, indicating that drivers

Interview Summaries D-7 enough to slow reckless drivers; more physical infrastructure and enforcement is necessary to combat those behaviors. The walking districts had increased enforcement over the first few weeks of the program, but now do not have any beyond what is normally provided by the police force. In surveys, residents expressed the desire for more continual enforcement and education efforts by the police to encourage safer driving speeds. Nashville’s relationship with the state DOT (TDOT) is healthy, but not very involved when it comes to residential speed reduction. The Walking District program only applied to residential local and collector streets, so speed limits were not changed on the major state route arterials. The most prominent conflict between City and state policies for pedestrian safety is around sidewalks—state policy directs 5-ft curb-tight sidewalks, whereas Nashville would prefer wider and separated sidewalks. That said, TDOT does have a safety office that will rebuild and redesign signals based on crash thresholds, which the City has found to be responsive to their requests. Portland, Oregon Portland’s speed management efforts have been holistic since adopting Vision Zero and creating the City’s action plan. Their approach frames speed reduction as an issue for every roadway user and efforts occur with roadway design, education, and enforcement. The City’s plan also involves the eventual goal of gaining authority to set speeds on all Portland streets—currently, that authority rests with the State. Portland did get authority to reduce residential street speed limits to 20 mph and has developed an alternate authority process for reducing speed on collectors, which includes a shortened form, more focus on multimodal use, and a quicker approval process. The traditional speed-reduction state process still exists for arterial roadways; Portland has gotten speed reductions on arterials using Declarations of Emergency. The City established a high-crash network when adopting Vision Zero for prioritizing infrastructure efforts and enforcement. For infrastructure, the City is focusing on relatively simple improvements such as narrowing lanes, adding crosswalks and pedestrian islands, adding bike lanes, building curb extensions, and/or upgrading signals. Portland has also added automated enforcement along four of its high-crash corridors; since implementing these cameras, there has been a 59% reduction in speeding. When beginning Vision Zero efforts, the City intentionally recruited a broad array of internal and external stakeholders to bring advocates into the formal discussion and ensure representation from traditionally underrepresented populations such as low-income residents and communities of color, who have historically been disproportionately impacted by serious crashes in Portland. In addition, the City’s Vision Zero team coordinates with the local Safe Routes to School efforts, participates as one of 10 Vision Zero Network Focus Cities, and is represented on ITE’s Vision Zero Task Force. Even with extensive outreach and partnerships, there has been resistance to speed management efforts. Some of that resistance is from the state and some is from the community. Often, communities neighborhoods within Nashville are asking to be identified as and receive walking districts treatments, a testament to the experiential improvements that are felt in the walking districts. Initial data within the walking districts show a decreased number of drivers going just a little over the previous speed limit, but not significantly changing the 85th percentile speed (defined by the fastest 15% of drivers). Staff believed the more passive treatments—signage, markings, branding—are not

D-8 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management San Francisco, California San Francisco focuses its speed-reduction efforts on design. The City is dense and often congested, so the City targets its speed-reduction efforts to areas and times of day when traffic is free flowing and drivers can reach higher speeds. Residents have asked for speed radar signs (which they have found to lose their effectiveness after a few weeks), but staff have focused on signal timing, design, and neighborhood beautification efforts to encourage slower speeds. The City has switched from focusing on curb extensions to speed humps. Speed humps are proven, relatively inexpensive (can do 30 to 40 for $150K, which is the amount for one curb extension), and encounter less resistance from the fire department, which has been resistant to many of the proposed speed-reduction efforts. Speed humps have been met with occasional resistance, as the disabled community has reported that they are bad for back issues and they cannot be placed on transit corridors. In addition to speed humps, San Francisco developed a new vertical deflection device called “speed cushions” that have wheel path cuts in them spaced for buses. The wheelbase for the bus is wider than a passenger vehicle, so the devices retain some effectiveness for passenger vehicles, while allowing buses to pass over with little vertical deflection. San Francisco’s speed-reduction program relies heavily on partnerships with the police department and the health department. The police department committed to focusing on speed-related issues through a campaign known as Focus on the Five, which identified the City’s five top collision factors. As such, 50% of the City’s citations now need to address these five issues, of which speeding is one. The San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) has been the lead for many of the City’s speed- reduction efforts—they have created all the high-injury network maps, complete data analyses, and have been an advocate for projects. Part of the reason they can do this is that there is only one Level 1 Trauma Center in San Francisco, so the SFDPH can gather data on vehicle-related injuries, of which they have found that 25 to 30% that come to the trauma center are not reported in crash data. For metrics, the City most often uses collision data, although there are difficulties getting it in a timely manner. SFDPH has stepped in as an intermediary between the police department and the transportation department, which has decreased the crash data lag time from 2 to 3 years to 1 year. Seattle, Washington Seattle has implemented many efforts throughout the city since the adoption of Vision Zero a few years ago, including rechannelization projects, a policy change to reduce default arterial speeds from 30 to 25 mph (signals were also adjusted to 25 mph progression speeds), and reducing nonarterials from 25 to 20 mph. In addition, they have created “Slow Zones” in six Seattle neighborhoods, which involved 25 mph signage and pavement legends. Of these neighborhoods, five showed decreases in speed. do not want the trade-offs of speed reductions, such as longer travel times, restricted turns into businesses or residential streets, and automated enforcement. The City is continually gathering data on changes in speeds and crashes as a result of their speed- reduction efforts. Their latest report that summarizes their annual findings can be found at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/74093.

Interview Summaries D-9 Seattle uses crash and speed data to track progress and help prioritize efforts. They are tied to evaluating the 85th percentile speed because of state regulations, but have also used the 50th percentile speed for urban villages (i.e., neighborhood business districts with land use that supports higher than average density of people, walking, bike, or taking the bus). Typical project evaluations occur about a year after a project is installed. Of Seattle’s efforts, they have found reengineering and redesigning roadways to be the most effective; signage by itself does not produce measurable results. Automated speed cameras have been deployed in school speed zones and have been universally effective in reducing high speeds in those areas. Seattle has also worked to improve their communications about their projects and highlight their successes, in order to validate the resources spent on speed-reduction projects and maintain momentum with the public. Partnerships are vital and necessary for Seattle’s success—they have more advocacy per capita than any other city in the United States. Residents are constantly lobbying the mayor and council for speed- reduction efforts. The City has modal advisory boards that serve as a flow-through for resident concerns and feedback, but the public plays a large role in projects and associated outreach efforts. Most resistance to speed-reduction efforts has come from residents who do not live near the implemented projects and see projects purely as something that increases their travel time.

Abbreviations and acronyms used without definitions in TRB publications: A4A Airlines for America AAAE American Association of Airport Executives AASHO American Association of State Highway Officials AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials ACI–NA Airports Council International–North America ACRP Airport Cooperative Research Program ADA Americans with Disabilities Act APTA American Public Transportation Association ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASTM American Society for Testing and Materials ATA American Trucking Associations CTAA Community Transportation Association of America CTBSSP Commercial Truck and Bus Safety Synthesis Program DHS Department of Homeland Security DOE Department of Energy EPA Environmental Protection Agency FAA Federal Aviation Administration FAST Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (2015) FHWA Federal Highway Administration FMCSA Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration FRA Federal Railroad Administration FTA Federal Transit Administration HMCRP Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ISTEA Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 ITE Institute of Transportation Engineers MAP-21 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (2012) NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASAO National Association of State Aviation Officials NCFRP National Cooperative Freight Research Program NCHRP National Cooperative Highway Research Program NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NTSB National Transportation Safety Board PHMSA Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration RITA Research and Innovative Technology Administration SAE Society of Automotive Engineers SAFETEA-LU Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (2005) TCRP Transit Cooperative Research Program TDC Transit Development Corporation TEA-21 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (1998) TRB Transportation Research Board TSA Transportation Security Administration U.S. DOT United States Department of Transportation

ISBN 978-0-309-48064-2 9 7 8 0 3 0 9 4 8 0 6 4 2 9 0 0 0 0 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed M anagem ent N CH RP Synthesis 535 TRB TRA N SPO RTATIO N RESEA RCH BO A RD 500 Fifth Street, N W W ashington, D C 20001 A D D RESS SERV ICE REQ U ESTED N O N -PR O FIT O R G . U .S. PO STA G E PA ID C O LU M B IA , M D PER M IT N O . 88