U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/pedforum/
The goal of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is to continually improve highway safety by reducing pedestrian crashes, fatalities and injuries by 10 percent by the year 2008, saving 465 lives. Doing so helps us achieve our overall goal of reducing roadway related fatalities from 1.5 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to 1 per 100 million VMT by the year 2008. Ensuring safe travel on roadways is the guiding principle throughout the FHWA. Pedestrian fatalities account for about 11 percent of all traffic fatalities and is one of the "Vital Few" focus areas of the FHWA's Safety Office. Although walking is a legitimate mode of transportation, it needs to be improved in every community in the United States. It is no longer acceptable that close to 5,000 pedestrians are killed in traffic every year, that people with disabilities cannot travel without encountering barriers, and that a desirable and efficient mode of travel has been made difficult and uncomfortable.
The Pedestrian Forum is also on the web at http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/.
NYSDOT completed a 3 year traffic calming engineering and design training effort for its professional engineering staff, and for local government transportation, planning and health professionals. The training sessions included materials that complement and update Chapter 25 (Traffic Calming) of the New York State Department of Transportation Highway
Design Manual. The materials included a workbook, supplemental guidance with full page design specifications, and Powerpoint presentations for the 2 day course. Eleven (11) training sessions were held throughout New York State for DOT staff (using Federal State Planning & Research - SPR funding), and seven (7) training sessions using an abridged 1 day course (with a pedestrian safety emphasis) for local government staff were also held statewide. The local government traffic calming training sessions were funded by Section 402 funds that were approved as a grant from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles' Governor's Traffic Safety Committee (GTSC).
With completion of its last local course in 2003, NYSDOT completed the nation's first statewide traffic calming training effort for staff and local government. Ongoing NYSDOT programs include a Traffic Calming Technology Transfer Clearinghouse (started in 1994) and the "Local Safe Streets and Traffic Calming Grant Program" on Long Island (started in 2000). For more information about these activities, please e-mail Jim Ercolano at JERCOLANO@dot.state.ny.us
World Health Day is an annual event held by the World Health Organization to mark the date of the establishment of the Organization. On 7 April 2004 around the globe, hundreds of organizations hosted events to help raise awareness about road traffic injuries, their grave consequences and enormous costs to society. They also contributed to spreading the word that such injuries can be prevented. For more information go to: http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2004/en/
The Commonwealth Transportation Board adopted VDOT's Policy for Integrating Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodations at its March 18 meeting. This policy provides the framework through which VDOT will accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians, including pedestrians with disabilities, along with motorized transportation modes in the planning, funding, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of Virginia's transportation network to achieve a safe, effective, and balanced multimodal transportation system. The policy statement broadly defines "accommodation" as "any facility, design feature, operational change, or maintenance activity that improves
the environment in which bicyclists and pedestrians travel" and explains that "bicycling and walking are successfully accommodated when travel by these modes is efficient, safe, and comfortable for the public." VDOT Press Release Dated March 18, 2004: http://virginiadot.org/infoservice/news/newsrelease.asp?ID=CO-0414
The Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC), the research division of the Virginia Department of Transportation, has just initiated a project entitled Developing Criteria and Guidelines for Pedestrian Crosswalks. The effort will consist of literature searches and reviews of current practices around the country. The literature and current practices will be synthesized and a task group will work together to develop potential guidelines for VDOT based on these current practices. The effort will address marked and unmarked crosswalks at signalized intersections, unsignalized intersections, and mid-block locations. If you have any information or references related to when/where crosswalks are needed as well as geometric/signing/striping considerations, please email Gene Arnold, Senior Research Scientist, Virginia Transportation Research Council, 530 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, (434)293-1931 FAX (434)293-1990, at Gene.Arnold@VirginiaDOT.org
BTS — Transportation Fatalities by mode can be found at:
http://199.79.179.77/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2003/excel/table_02_01.xls
Safer Journey Interactive Bicycle Safety Awareness CD-ROM, FHWA-SA-03-013 is an interactive CD (English/Spanish) that takes the user through various bicycle safety scenarios encountered every day across America. It has been developed to improve the level of bicycle knowledge for all road users and safety practitioners. The CD can be ordered at: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/walk/order/
Safer Journey Interactive Pedestrian Safety Awareness CD-ROM V 2, FHWA-SA-03-014, in English/Spanish is a remake of the initial CD-ROM (V1) that takes the user through various pedestrian safety scenarios encountered every day across America. It has been developed to improve the level of pedestrian knowledge for all road users and safety practitioners. Many States are using this CD as one of their tools to improve the level of pedestrian safety in their elementary schools. The CD can be viewed at: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/saferjourney/ or ordered at: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/walk/order/
A Review of Pedestrian Safety Research in the United States and Abroad - New FHWA report examines pedestrian safety in the United States and abroad. The report includes information on pedestrian crash characteristics, measures of pedestrian exposure and hazard, and specific roadway features and their effects on pedestrian safety. Such features include crosswalks and alternative crossing treatments, signalization, provisions for pedestrians with disabilities, bus stop location, school crossing measures, reflectorization and conspicuity, grade-separated crossings, traffic-calming measures, and sidewalks and paths. http://gulliver.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=3260
The Effects of Daylight and Daylight Ssaving Time on US Pedestrian Fatalities and Motor Vehicle Occupant Fatalities, D. Coate and S. Markovitz - This paper analyzes the effects of daylight and daylight saving time (DST) on pedestrian and motor vehicle occupant fatalities in the United States. Multivariate analyses of county level data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 2-week periods in 1998 and 1999 are used. Results show that full year daylight saving time would reduce pedestrian fatalities by 171 per year, or by 13% of all pedestrian fatalities in the 5:00-10.00 a.m. and in the 4:00-9:00 p.m. time periods. More information can be found in the Accident Analysis & Prevention Journal at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00014575, Volume 36, Issue 3, May 2004, Pages 351-357.
May 6-8 Fourth National Congress of Pedestrian Advocates, Silver Spring, Maryland. http://americawalks.org/congress/.
June 9-11 Walk21 Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark. www.citiesforpeople.dk.
Sep. 7-10 Pro-Bike/Pro-Walk 2004, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. http://www.bikewalk.org/PWPB2004/PWPB2004.htm.
October 6, 2004, Walk to School Day http://www.walktoschool.org/
Create an effective state collaborative to promote health, safety, walking & biking. "Go Statewide" is a special training offered by America Walks and the National Center for Bicycling and Walking, in conjunction with the National Congress of Pedestrian Advocates, May 5-8, 2004. Explore the "why" and "how" of statewide coalitions that promote walking and bicycling, improve pedestrian safety and health, calm traffic, create livable neighborhoods, and battle the bulge of obesity-related disease. Trainers include partners involved in existing coalitions in California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. If you have one or want to start one, this one-time training is a must. Why walk alone? Scholarships are available to offset registration fees and some travel costs.
For more info, or to recommend a champion to guide your "Go Statewide" collaborative, contact America Walks Go Statewide Initiative at 262-37 5-6180, or info@americawalks.org. To view the Agenda of the National Congress of Pedestrian Advocates, go to www.americawalks.org
NHTSA has produced two CD-ROMS – one for bicycle and one for pedestrian resources. Each provides the pedestrian/bicycle professional with a resource guide of countermeasures that can be used by a variety of implementers to help solve specific commonly occurring pedestrian/bicycle safety problems. The bicycle guide contains countermeasures collected through mid-1998 and the pedestrian guide through mid-2002. If you have new or updated countermeasures that should be included in the CD-ROM, please provide the titles, authors, and sources of each to the address listed below. If available, receipt of actual copies of the countermeasures would be appreciated. Arlene Cleven, Dunlap and Associates, Inc., 110 Lenox Avenue, Stamford, CT 06906-2300, 203-323-8464, (fax) 203-964-0799, or e-mail arlenecleven@aol.com.
According to an April 5th New York Daily News article: "Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a slew of new safety improvements designed to make Queens Blvd. much less dangerous. The improvements are focused on the westernmost and easternmost sections of Queens Blvd. – the 3.5-mile stretch from Van Dam St. to the Long Island Expressway and the 1-mile segment from Union Turnpike to Hillside Ave. The improvements include changing traffic signals so pedestrians have more crossing time, installing more pedestrian fencing and creating "leading pedestrian intervals". Queens Blvd., dubbed the Boulevard of Death by the Daily News, had 72 pedestrian fatalities from 1993 to 2000. Since 2001, there have been 11 fatalities. "We are not going to rest as long as New Yorkers keep dying on the streets of this city. We're going in the right direction and we've gone a long ways," Bloomberg said. "But there is still a ways to go and we're not walking away from this."
Editors:
leverson.boodlal@fhwa.dot.gov, 202-366-8044 (KLS)
tamara.redmon@fhwa.dot.gov, 202-366-4077
400 7th Street, SW, Room 3407, Washington, DC 20590
