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
Downloadable PDF [1.08 MB]
In this issue:
FHWA Hosts Virtual Peer Exchange on Safe System for Pedestrians and Bicyclists
FHWA Hosts Virtual Peer Exchange on Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Action Plan Development
Case Studies for FHWA Pedestrian and Bicycle Focus States and Cities
Bikeway Selection Guide: New Resources and Incorporation of Guide into State Planning Documents
On March 19, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) hosted a Virtual Peer Exchange on Safe System for Pedestrians and Bicyclists, which followed along with the primer mentioned in the call out box at right. The FHWA Safety Office has been encouraging applications of Safe System to be adopted nationally.
The discussion focused on planning-level applications, followed by project-level applications of Safe System. The goal of the meeting was to talk about how to implement Safe System approaches with an eye to prioritizing safety for pedestrians and bicyclists and to reflect big takeaways, participant concerns, and lessons that could be useful for other agencies doing similar work.
The Peer Exchange was attended by participants from the Departments of Transportation (DOT) in California, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Washington state.
Moderators closed the day with a final discussion about implementation of Safe System moving forward. This started with a few poll questions:
Participants were asked if they were planning on implementing the Safe System Approach. Responses were:
They were also asked what they would need to implement the Safe System approach, and answered as follows:
Participants felt that it would be valuable to have Safe System messaging from all Federal agencies, and a few suggested that mandating the adoption of Safe System approaches would be a big step forward.
FHWA recently developed a Primer on Safe System Approach for Pedestrians and Bicyclists. The purpose of this primer is to provide transportation agencies a baseline understanding of the Safe System approach and how it relates to bicycle and pedestrian safety.
The Safe System approach aims to eliminate fatal and serious injuries for all road users. It does so through a holistic view of the road system that first anticipates human mistakes and second keeps impact energy on the human body at tolerable levels.
FHWA held a second peer exchange on April 14 on Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Action Plan (PBSAP) development. The peer exchange followed a webinar the preceding day in which participants from State agencies were also invited to participate in the virtual peer-to-peer event. Representatives from 19 state and local governments attended.
PBSAP’s are valuable tools that can help transportation agencies establish a framework and approach for reducing deaths and injuries among vulnerable road users. FHWA developed How to Develop a Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Action Plan many years ago to help guide agencies through the steps required to develop their own action plans for improving safety. During the webinar, authors of the guide reviewed the elements of successful PBSAP’s and described how DOT’s at the state level can develop their own plans. Panelists from Virginia and Oregon discussed their approaches to crafting and implementing their plans and offered lessons for the audience. You can review the recording here.
During the Peer Exchange event, participants discussed safety action plan development with other State agencies and representatives from the FHWA. The session was largely discussion-based and intended to support agencies in the process of developing their own action plans.
Some key takeways that agencies noted when establishing vision and goals for their plan:
As documented previously in this newsletter, FHWA's Safety Office has been working to aggressively reduce pedestrian and bicyclist deaths by focusing extra resources on the cities and states with the highest pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and/or fatality rates . This effort is known as Focus States and Cities.
As part of this, FHWA has been providing free training on designing safe pedestrian and bicyclist facilities and workshops that have led to the development of PBSAP’s, and many other successes. Over 300 technical assistance workshops have been held over the 17-year period.
This new case study document provides information on how agencies have worked with FHWA to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety through the Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Focused Approach Program. It includes case studies for the City of Austin, Texas and the States of Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, and New York.
FHWA released its Bikeway Selection Guide two years ago. This resource helps transportation practitioners consider trade-offs and make decisions to accelerate the delivery of high-quality bicycle networks.
FHWA also recently completed supplemental resources to complement the Bikeway Selection Guide. The first of these, On Street Motor Vehicle Parking and the Bikeway Selection Process, is intended to inform discussions about on-street parking and bikeway selection. It begins with a discussion of on-street parking and bikeway types, with associated dimensional requirements and trade-off considerations. It then presents several strategies involving choices specifically relating to the overlap between general purpose on-street parking and passenger or commercial loading activities, design details, and bikeway selection.
The other resource, entitled Traffic Analysis and Intersection Considerations to Inform Bikeway Selection is intended to inform trade-off decisions associated with bikeway selection at intersections. It discusses common performance metrics, spatial needs of bikeways at intersections, safety and equity focused design principles, and operational traffic analysis trade-offs and assumptions.
FHWA held a webinar on these two new resources on April 7. The recording can be viewed here. FHWA also held a webinar on the Bikeway Selection Guide itself when it was developed in 2019, which can be viewed here.
As part of the overall project, 23 workshops were held across the U.S. between summer 2019 and spring 2021 for the following locations: El Paso, Texas; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Springdale, Arkansas; Chesapeake, Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Mesquite, Texas; Fort Worth, Texas; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Denver, Colorado; Coco, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; St. Louis, Missouri region; North Carolina DOT; Hawaii DOT; Pennsylvania DOT; Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commtitee; Pennsylvania DOT; Washington County Council of Governments, Oregon; and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
As part of the overall project contract, FHWA offered free technical assistance for two years to any state/locality that wanted to use the guide. During this process FHWA documented how states and localities are starting to use the Guide. These are some known applications of the Guide in local or State plans and documents:
The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is incorporating information from the Guide into its Training Wheels 3.0 Course being developed.
FHWA is very encouraged by the amount of interest in the Guide. Enthusiasm for bicycle facilities remains strong and there is increasing demand as popularity of this mode of travel increases throughout the country.
We always like to hear about any new uses and applications of the Guide and supplemental resources. If your state/city/locality is using the guide in other ways, please let us know by contacting: tamara.redmon@dot.gov.
The National Cooperative Highway Research Program recently released NCHRP Report 948: Guide for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety at Alternative and Other Intersections and Interchanges. Alternative Intersections and Interchanges (A.I.I.s) are designs that improve operations and safety for motorized traffic by strategically adjusting the geometric features at a given location, working on the general principle of redistributing motor vehicle demand at an intersection in an attempt to limit the need to add capacity with new lanes to improve traffic flow.
The Guide provides specific guidance for four common A.I.I.s: Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI), Restricted Crossing U-Turn (RCUT), Median U-Turn (MUT), and Displaced Left-Turn (DLT). These designs may involve reversing traffic lanes from their traditional directions, which may introduce confusion and create safety issues for pedestrians and bicyclists.
In addition, pedestrian paths and bicycle facilities may cross through islands or take different routes than expected. These new designs are likely to require additional information for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians as well as better accommodations for pedestrians and bicyclists, including pedestrians with disabilities.
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.
