Studies

Elementary School Study of Crosswalk Practices

A grade 5-class in the Halifax Regional Municipality discussed and examined crosswalk safety as a project.  Part of the project was to survey a number of practices around crosswalk safety.  Click on the picture below to see the final results of this project:

 

gr_5_survey_results

 

Effectiveness of Crossing Treatments, with a focus on Crosswalk Flags

 

A 2006 Report – Report 562 ‘IMPROVING PEDESTRIAN SAFETY AT UNSIGNALIZED CROSSINGS’ by the Transit Cooperative Research Program of the Transportation Research Board (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_562.pdf), observes:

“…several cities use fluorescent orange flags that are carried by crossing pedestrians. No formal studies were found in the literature on the effectiveness of crossing flags; however, anecdotal information indicated these crossing flags are effective in improving driver yielding behavior”

 

“Field studies conducted in this TCRP/NCHRP project found pedestrian crossing flags in Salt Lake City and Kirkland to be moderately effective. The study sites with crossing flags had motorist yielding rates that ranged from 46 to 79 percent, with an average of 65 percent compliance. Several of the study sites had four or more lanes with speed limits of 30 mph (48 km/h) or 35 mph (55 km/h).”

The Report studied and measured the range and average motorist yielding rates by crossing treatment. The following crossing treatments were considered with resulting ranges and averages:

 

Effectiveness of Crossing Treatments table - Microsoft Word

The report notes    The agencies interviewed have installed a wide variety of pedestrian crossing treatments (in sum total) that range from the inexpensive (e.g., pedestrian crossing flags or in-street pedestrian crossing signs) to just-as-expensive-as vehicle traffic signals (e.g., midblock pedestrian traffic signals)”

 

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The Report concludes (page 48)

  • red signal or beacon treatments consistently perform well, with compliance rates above 94%

  • pedestrian crossing flags and in-street crossing signs also were effective in prompting motorist yielding

It is noteworthy that this study concluded pedestrian crossing flags had considerably greater impact on motorist yielding rates than did overhead flashing amber beacons (and high-visibility signs/markings).