Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management (2019) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 44-64
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From page 44... ...
44 3.1 Introduction The preceding chapter discussed research findings relevant to pedestrian safety and traffic speed, including the strong, positive correlation between higher vehicle speeds and pedestrian injury severity and a toolbox of potential countermeasures (Rosén and Sander 2009; Tefft 2013)
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State of the Practice 45 Where practical, conclusions drawn from the aggregate interviews are presented; additionally, selected agencies are highlighted as case examples in sidebars for specific ideas and approaches. Appendix D provides summaries of the interviews conducted for this synthesis.
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46 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management 3.2.1 Community-Driven Advocacy Community-driven advocacy efforts take various forms. Nearly all the jurisdictions interviewed have some sort of community or resident program where individuals can report traffic concerns to the transportation bureau or public works department.
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State of the Practice 47 3.2.2 Adopted Policies and Plans In theory, jurisdictional actions and programs are founded in policies and, in turn, reflected in plans. In reality, this does not always happen; jurisdictions often react to residents or elected officials, and policy guidance can become a lower priority.
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48 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management Figure 3-2. City of Portland pedestrian high-crash network.
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State of the Practice 49 3.3 Implementation Efforts The jurisdictions were asked about efforts they have implemented over the past 2 years to improve pedestrian safety by managing speeds. None of those interviewed rely solely on lowering the posted speed limit to reduce vehicle speeds.
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50 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management sustain in light of cost and staffing demands. This is especially the case when police officers are needed; many jurisdiction's police departments have limited traffic enforcement officers and, as such, cannot afford to regularly have them pulled off routine shifts for targeted enforcement activities.
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State of the Practice 51 is based around access to the rail system (11 METRO stations are in Arlington) , and the goal is to get as many people using transit as possible.
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52 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management implemented "rest on red" on some of their roadways, where lights remain red until triggered by a vehicle once they reach the intersection in question. 3.3.3 Effectiveness of Efforts As explained above, jurisdictions often use a suite of treatments in their efforts to reduce speeds and improve pedestrian safety.
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State of the Practice 53 Arlington: Revised Design Standards Arlington relies heavily on detailed design standards to create the sorts of places they want to see and tailor development to specific neighborhood characteristics. In addition, Arlington's continued success as an inner-ring suburb to Washington, D.C., is highly dependent on having pedestrian access to transit.
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54 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management However, many jurisdictions are not allowed to use automated speed cameras or are restricted because of state regulations and/or privacy concerns; several interviewees cited this restriction as a limitation for their speed-reduction efforts. Signal Manipulation Signal timing was used by multiple jurisdictions to regulate speeds, as well as to require highspeed traffic to stop.
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State of the Practice 55 Figure 3-6. Locations of school speed zone safety cameras in Seattle.
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56 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management 3.4 Partnerships Creating and fostering partnerships is essential to large-scale behavior change such as speed reduction. Partners, especially those that are local, often have critical relationships with stakeholders who may be affected by speed-reduction efforts and may also have access to resources and data that help facilitate a greater understanding of the problems and potential solutions.
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State of the Practice 57 Once the problem was identified and validated by community concerns and data, many jurisdictions tried to get official written support by some sort of community organization. Efforts in Arlington, Durham, and Nashville moved forward largely because of support by formal civic and neighborhood associations.
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58 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management Portland: Investing in Community Relationships The City of Portland worked closely with the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) to create and distribute culturally relevant and languagespecific street safety outreach and education after multiple pedestrian fatalities in predominantly Asian neighborhoods.
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State of the Practice 59 Bicycle and pedestrian advocacy groups are also instrumental in offering support for speedreduction efforts and creating support or energy for the jurisdiction. This proved to be critical for Calgary, Seattle, Nashville, and Portland, whose efforts were pushed forward by advocates who lobbied the elected body for change and created energy and demand that jurisdictional staff could not.
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60 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management number, and improve active transportation options. Because the roads where these projects are located are usually high speed and autocentric, there is rarely existing bicycle traffic, and as a result, community members may not think that bike lanes make sense.
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State of the Practice 61 The process of setting speed limits -- and in particular the 85th percentile method -- featured prominently in the interviews. While multiple interviewees expressed a desire for more flexibility to lower speeds, particularly on certain roadways, there appeared to be a lack of clarity about who is ultimately responsible for the constraints around setting speed limits, and thus how to change those constraints.
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62 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management for jurisdictions. Many also gather before and after traffic volumes to understand how the project affected traffic flow.
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State of the Practice 63 3.7.1 Metrics from the Literature The literature review in Chapter 2 found that common metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of an individual treatment in a specific study included average speed, 85th percentile speed, and the percentage of top-end speeders. A few of the most common metrics for evaluating the effect of a countermeasure or policy on safety include the following (FHWA 2016)
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64 Pedestrian Safety Relative to Traffic-Speed Management In addition, even when metrics are gathered, it is difficult to show causality between a certain type of improvement and pedestrian safety. This is mostly because it is rare for only one treatment to happen at a time -- often bike lanes go in when lane size is reduced and parking is adjusted, additional crossings may be accompanied by additional street lighting and amenities, or speed-limit reductions occur with complementary design changes and enforcement efforts.
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