NYMTC Regional Pedestrian Safety Study - New York Metropolitan ...

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Private Organizations Safe Routes for Seniors - Transportation Alternatives: The project includes an educational component, which includes subjects such as interpretation of pedestrian signals and the need to stand back from larger vehicles that are turning. http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/safeseniors/index.html Streets for People brochure (Transportation Alternatives): Transportation Alternatives has produced a brochure that explains traffic calming for communities, which is available in English and Spanish. http://www.transalt.org/info/streets4people/index.html Automobile Club of New York has several educational programs. One is to provide assistance to schools in training safety patrols. The training curriculum includes bus loading and unloading, walking on school property, and safety at nearby intersections. Education of parents and prospective mothers (Safe Kids): Material on safe walking habits is provided to teachers who give it to the children to take home to their parents. The material stresses being a role model for the children. Also, they work with pregnant women to encourage them to develop safe walking behavior as a lifelong habit for them and their children. Walk this Way (Safe Kids, sponsored by Federal Express): Safe Kids and FedEx Express provide safety expertise and assist in the collection of research data to document the problems for child pedestrians. On International Walk to School Day, volunteers escort children to and from school. New Jersey Pedestrian Safety Education Programs New Jersey transportation agencies do many educational activities similar to those in New York State, as well as a few beyond what is done in New York. A few of the latter are listed below. • NJDOT, through the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, maintains an extensive library of videos and other resources on safety, including pedestrian safety. http://www.njbikeped.org/ • New Jersey Transit includes a pedestrian safety component in their bus driver training curriculum. They also distribute frequent “Safety Bulletins” to the drivers, many of which cover pedestrian safety. A third educational effort is to remind their passengers of safe pedestrian practices (e.g., don’t cross in front of buses) by leaving flyers on bus seats. • The Division of Highway Traffic Safety sponsors radio spots on safety topics, including pedestrian safety. NYMTC Pedestrian Safety Study 34
IV. PEDESTRIAN SAFETY ISSUES IN THE NYMTC REGION This chapter presents and describes the pedestrian safety issues in the NYMTC region based on the interviews and public meetings. It should be noted that in several cases people were stating opinions that they did not support with evidence; some of their opinions may be controversial or incorrect. This chapter attempts to fairly represent the input, and therefore included what people said with few qualifications. In several cases, details from national studies have been included to give increased insight into the regional issues. Additionally, Chapter 2 uses regional and national statistics to describe the level and nature of pedestrian safety and to contrast pedestrian safety characteristics in this region with national characteristics. The issues have been organized under the following categories: behavioral issues, issues of specific high-risk groups, issues that are specific to a particular situation or location, infrastructure and land use issues, and other issues not pertinent to these categories. As was frequently noted, the NYMTC region varies considerably, from the extreme density of buildings, traffic and pedestrians in Manhattan to rural areas in the further parts of the outer suburban counties; in places the issues are attributed to a specific area, frequently based on the location of the organization that brought the issue. However, many of the issues that one part of the region claimed as specific to their area were also brought up in contrasting areas. Also note that this chapter deals specifically with the problems and issues. Potential solutions are discussed in the next chapter. 4.1 Behavioral issues One of the most frequently mentioned issues was the behavior of either pedestrians or drivers or both. Many of the behavioral problems are common to both groups; motorists and pedestrians do not respect each other’s right of way, and motorists have not absorbed the concept of sharing the road with non-motorized users. Common issues Alcohol and drugs are problems for both drivers and pedestrians. There is better evidence for alcohol involvement than for drugs. Nationally alcohol use by either the pedestrian or the driver or both was reported in 47 percent of pedestrian fatalities. The pedestrian had been drinking in 38 percent of the cases, the driver in 16 percent. The overlap of crashes where both driver and pedestrian were drinking was nine percent. (NCSA, 2006) The problem is worse at night; 54 percent of pedestrians killed between 9 PM and 6 AM had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08 or more (IIHS, 2006). It is probable that limited nighttime visibility is compounding the effect of the alcohol. NYMTC Pedestrian Safety Study 35
Page 1 and 2: New York Metropolitan Transportatio
Page 3 and 4: 1. Report No. 2. Government Accessi
Page 5 and 6: Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1
Page 7 and 8: Table of Figures 2.1 Ten Year Trend
Page 9 and 10: I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Study Origin an
Page 11 and 12: in the United States; the 2004 data
Page 13 and 14: Table 1.1 Organizations That Were I
Page 15 and 16: II. BACKGROUND ON PEDESTRIAN SAFETY
Page 17 and 18: Figure 2.1 Ten Year Trend in Pedest
Page 19 and 20: Figure 2.3 Historic Trend in Annual
Page 21 and 22: than fatality rates.) The most noti
Page 23 and 24: III. ORGANIZATIONS FOR PEDESTRIAN S
Page 25 and 26: • Updating and creating new stand
Page 27 and 28: The New York State Metropolitan Pla
Page 29 and 30: getting input from people who have
Page 31 and 32: i. 20% of priority crash locations
Page 33 and 34: located by reference marker (the sm
Page 35 and 36: that the proper signage and other t
Page 37 and 38: and funding has been secured to adv
Page 39 and 40: Westchester County and NYSDOT have
Page 41: programs in each borough. The NYCDO
Page 45 and 46: Drivers: Typical statements about d
Page 47 and 48: • Ability to lift foot high decre
Page 49 and 50: The national data indicates that th
Page 51 and 52: Vendors Vendors set up their carts
Page 53 and 54: Table 4.1 Continued Staten Island H
Page 55 and 56: 4.4 Existing Infrastructure and Lan
Page 57 and 58: Some sidewalks are poorly designed
Page 59 and 60: pedestrian design. At least one per
Page 61 and 62: Crosswalks need to be more visible.
Page 63 and 64: V COUNTERMEASURES AND STRATEGIES Th
Page 65 and 66: timing and street lighting. New Jer
Page 67 and 68: Providing Sidewalks: Walking-along-
Page 69 and 70: the pedestrian crash rate was signi
Page 71 and 72: Speed management through engineerin
Page 73 and 74: nearby streets. Whereas Bus-pedestr
Page 75 and 76: and have geometric curvature that e
Page 77 and 78: Roadway narrowings are used to prov
Page 79 and 80: have experienced a maintenance prob
Page 81 and 82: measures with specific geographic a
Page 83 and 84: and 3.0 feet per second more approp
Page 85 and 86: Figure 5.17 Split Phase Cycle Sourc
Page 87 and 88: Combined Automatic and Actuated Sig
Page 89 and 90: 5.2.5 Visibility To insure safety,
Page 91 and 92: Pedestrian Crosswalk Signs: There a
Page 93 and 94:
also be placed next to the stop lin
Page 95 and 96:
Table 5.5 Crash Reduction Factors f
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ask them to act as role models for
Page 99 and 100:
5.3.3 Educating Local Officials and
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• Good planning and organization.
Page 103 and 104:
VI. FUNDING Funding for pedestrian
Page 105 and 106:
York, Projects are chosen by the NY
Page 107 and 108:
NHTSA distributes the Section 402 f
Page 109 and 110:
VII. RECOMMENDATIONS As noted in Ch
Page 111 and 112:
o Safe Routes to School • NYMTC s
Page 113 and 114:
easy to use is residential populati
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REFERENCES American Council of the
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ITE (1998) Design and Safety of Ped
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Parsons Brincherhoff Quade & Dougla
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Intentionally left blank. NYMTC Ped
Page 123 and 124:
Intentionally left blank. NYMTC Ped
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NYMTC Pedestrian Safety Interview f
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12. Do you have any strategies or t
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Appendix B: PEDESTRIAN SAFETY CONTA
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New York City Department of Transpo
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Suffolk County Department of Public
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Appendix C: TRAFFIC SAFETY BOARD CO
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Appendix D: ON LINE PEDESTRIAN SAFE
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FARS Query System is an interactive
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Education and Enforcement Counterme
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Appendix E: NEW YORK CITY FATATLIES
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Appendix F: Prompt Lists for Pedest
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Pedestrian Safety Prompt List Gener
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pathway provide direct access to wa
Page 151 and 152:
If so, is there a sign that explain
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