Improving pedestrian safety continues to be critically important to ODOT’s mission to provide a safe and reliable multimodal transportation system. Approximately 920 pedestrians were injured, and 78 pedestrians were killed in Oregon each year between 2016 and 2020. Some of these pedestrian-vehicle crashes occur at intersections, where agencies have installed either geometric or operational countermeasures to improve pedestrian safety. Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPI) allow pedestrians to start their crossing prior to conflicting vehicles. Curb extensions improve the visibility of pedestrians to drivers, shorten the crossing distance, and slow turning vehicles. ODOT uses both options to improve pedestrian safety but guidance in lacking to optimally evaluate and select these options.

The proposed research will support the ODOT Strategic Action Plan’s priority of a modern transportation system and the Strategic Action Plan’s goal of safety.

This study will produce guidance on how best to evaluate the needs and expected safety benefits of LPI and curb extensions. The research will identify the improvement in pedestrian safety when these countermeasures are used individually and when they are used conjunction with other countermeasures to improve pedestrian safety. The research will identify tradeoffs for their application and will provide guidance on how to consider them in the evaluation and decision-making. These findings will be developed in a form that can be easily integrated into agency design and practice documents. The results of scaled adoption will be enhanced pedestrian safety at signalized intersections and improved return on the investments.