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

V COUNTERMEASURES AND STRATEGIES
This chapter describes various measures for improving pedestrian safety. The measures
described here were identified through both the interviews and from a review of the literature on
pedestrian safety. This chapter will not try to include comprehensive material; instead it will
provide brief descriptions of methods and where available information of the effectiveness of the
measure. It will also include references to documents with more complete information. Over the
last several years, several excellent guides to improving pedestrian safety and many papers on
specific methods have been published.
Four excellent comprehensive documents are:
• PedSafe: Pedestrian Safety Guide and Countermeasure Selection System, David Harkey
and Charles Zegeer, September 2004, for FHWA. Available at:
http://www.walkinginfo.org/pedsafe/pedsafe_downloads.cfm
• Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Resource Guide, NHTSA, 2006. Available at:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/pedbimot/bike/BikePedestrian/
• Design and Safety of Pedestrian Facilities: Recommended Practices of the Institute of
Transportation Engineers, 1998. Available at:
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/docs/designsafety.pdf
• Guidance for Implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan; Volume
10: A Guide for Reducing Collisions Involving Pedestrians, NCHRP Report 500, volume
10, Zegeer, Charles, Stutts, Jean, et al. (2004). Available at:
http://safety.transportation.org/guides.aspx
This chapter starts with a section on policy and planning for pedestrian safety. This is followed
by specific methods organized by the three Es, engineering, education, and enforcement. Safety
experts periodically suggest increasing the three Es to be four, five, or six Es in order to
incorporate concerns about economics, evaluation, or emergency services. However, this study
will concentrate on the original three.
Although the three Es are discussed in separate sections, a pedestrian safety project should
include all three of them for maximum effectiveness. The New Jersey Division of Highway
Safety found that many of the pedestrian safety engineering countermeasures that were
implemented in isolation did not have the impact that was expected; when the engineering
countermeasures were implemented in conjunction with education and enforcement programs,
they found that the combined effort resulted in a 10 to 15 percent reduction in crashes. In
September 2006, New Jersey announced a pedestrian safety program that includes initiatives
under all three Es. (See program description at:
http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/approved/20060918.html .)
NYMTC Pedestrian Safety Study 55