U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
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In this issue:
Webinars on Systemic Ped and Bike Safety and Measuring Risk
Toolbox of Pedestrian Countermeasures and Their Potential Effectiveness
New! Strategies for Accelerating Multimodal Project Delivery
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) just released the Bikeway Selection Guide–a resource to help transportation practitioners consider and make informed decisions about trade-offs relating to the selection of bikeway types. It incorporates and builds upon FHWA's active support for design flexibility and connected, safe, and comfortable bicycle networks.
The also based on the complementary Literature Review: Resource Guide for Separating Bicyclists from Traffic. The literature review summarizes safety research for common bikeway types and provides a brief history U.S. and international guidance for bikeway selection.
The Guide references existing national resources and outlines a process for balancing trade-offs by identifying the desired bikeway type, assessing and refining potential options, and evaluating feasibility. This process is intended to accelerate the delivery of high-quality multimodal projects that improve safety for everyone and meet the transportation needs of people of all ages and abilities.
This guide presents the bikeway selection process in a practical way. It provides detailed information about the key steps in the process, including:
Bikeway selection is a context-sensitive decision that involves a planning and engineering, based analytical process. It starts with the identification of a desired facility and then gets refined based on real-world conditions such as available right-of-way and budget. Factors discussed in the guide include:
There will be future workshop opportunities and free ongoing technical assistance in the next two years. For more information contact tamara.redmon@dot.gov for more information about the guide or technical assistance.
The FHWA held webinars on Scalable Risk Assessment for Pedestrians and Bicyclists and Funding and Implementing Systemic Pedestrian Safety Projects in the last several months. Both webinars contain a lot of useful information and the recordings are available for viewing here and here.
The Scalable Risk Assessment webinar introduced the recently developed Guide for Scalable Risk Assessment Methods for Pedestrians and Bicyclists (Report No. FHWA-SA-18- 032), which was detailed in the Fall 2018 edition of this newsletter. The Guide outlines eight sequential steps to develop risk values, and describes the scope and nature of each step, including guiding principles. An accompanying spreadsheet tool to estimate statewide and MPO area non-motorized exposure is available online, and is based on combining data from the American Community Survey and the National Household Travel Survey. Panelists were Tamara Redmon, FHWA Office of Safety; Shawn Turner, Michael Martin, and Ipek Sener at Texas A&M Transportation Institute; and Robert Hampshire, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.
The FHWA webinar on Funding and Implementing Systemic Pedestrian Safety Projects showcased examples of how agencies have made the case for proactive, risk-based approaches to improving pedestrian safety. After sharing some of the tools available to conduct systemic safety analysis,provided guidance for using Federal funds to support systemic safety projects and showcase examples of project evaluation. were Karen Scurry and Tamara Redmon, FHWA; Elissa Goughnour, VHB; and Tracy Turpin, Virginia Department of Transportation.
FHWA recently updated the Toolbox of Pedestrian Countermeasures and their Potential Effectiveness. This "toolbox,” which was last updated in 2013, documents estimates of the crash reduction that might be expected if a specific countermeasure or group of countermeasures is implemented with respect to pedestrian crashes. The crash reduction estimates are presented as Crash Reduction Factors (CRFs). Traffic engineers and other transportation professionals can use the information contained in this toolbox when trying to figure out which countermeasures would be effective in improving safety at a certain type of locations (such as a signalized intersection). Among other edits, the document now contains four new CMF's (raised medians, rectangular rapid flashing beacons (also known as RRFB's), pedestrian hybrid beacons, and advanced stop/yield lines & signs).
Tamara Redmon, Pedestrian Safety Program
Manager
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE
Room E71-303
Washington, DC 20590
Phone: 202-366-4077
Fax: 202-366-3222
E-mail: tamara.redmon@dot.gov
This Pedestrian and Bike Forum is available on the Web at http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/pedforum/
To receive information on future newsletters, please use the esubscription service provided on this site: http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/esubscribe.cfm. Scroll down to "Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety" and select "subscribe" next to "Pedestrian Forum."
Helping Communities to provide safe and convenient transportation choices to all citizens, whether it's by walking, bicycling, transit, or driving is a high priority of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Each year, unfortunately, pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities comprise about 17 percent of all traffic fatalities and there are approximately 6,000 pedestrian and bicyclist deaths. Another 115,000 pedestrians and bicyclists are injured in roadway crashes annually. Pedestrian and bicyclist safety improvements depend on an integrated approach that involves the four E's: Engineering, Enforcement, Education, and Emergency Services. The Pedestrian and Bicyclist Forum highlights recent pedestrian and bike safety activities related to the four E's that will help save lives.
The FHWA Office of Human Environment recently released Strategies for Accelerating Multimodal Project Delivery, a workbook that is intended to help transportation agencies and practitioners identify top strategies for accelerating multimodal infrastructure delivery.
Common challenges addressed in this Workbook include:
The strategies highlighted address each project development phase of:
Transportation agencies face growing demand for an integrated transportation network that safely and efficiently move people. Motorists, freight, transit passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians, all have unique needs and infrastructure everywhere is being adapted to the multimodal nature of travel.
