The Federal Highway Administration's Office of Safety has a technical support contract to develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan Guide and provide technical assistance to selected cities and states on pedestrian safety. For this project, the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center within the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center is serving as a subcontractor to Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. to develop the guide. How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan will help state and local officials know where to begin to address pedestrian safety issues. It is also intended to assist agencies in further enhancing their existing pedestrian safety programs and activities, including identifying safety problems, analyzing information, and selecting optimal solutions. The guide also contains information on how to involve stakeholders, potential sources of funding for implementing projects and how to evaluate projects.

The guide is primarily a reference for improving pedestrian safety through street redesign and the use of engineering countermeasures, as well as other safety-related treatments and programs that involve the whole community. This guide can be used by engineers, planners, traffic safety and enforcement professionals, public health and injury prevention professionals, and decision-makers who have the responsibility of improving pedestrian safety at the state or local level.

As part of its FHWA contract, PBIC is currently providing technical assistance and training to 13 states and 5 cities (identified as “focus states” and “focus cities” by the FHWA) in the development of pedestrian safety action plans. These cities and states — Los Angeles, Phoenix, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas — were chosen based on their pedestrian crash experience. For more information on training opportunities for pedestrian safety, please contact Charlie Zegeer at charlie_zegeer@unc.edu.

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How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan (PDF format)