Changing Pedestrian Policy to Expand Crosswalks on Main Streets

Sam and neighborhood leaders unveiled the new crosswalk work to the press.When making decisions about where and whether to place crosswalks, PDOT has until recently only looked at automobile traffic counts to determine whether or not a crossing was worthy at any particular intersection.

This meant, however, that many notable streets, NW 23rd top among them, did not qualify for crosswalks, since there was simply not a high volume of traffic on these roads. But as anyone who has traversed NW 23rd knows, the combination of a small street and a huge number of pedestrians made for both a harried crossing for pedestrians and driving experience for motorists.

Sam felt that the old methodology used to choose which streets would get crosswalks missed the mark because some districts have particularly heavy pedestrian activity, and he that should count for something when choosing where to place crossings.

Sam worked with PDOT safety engineers to come up with a new way to gauge where to put crosswalks that took into account the nature of the street and the overall pedestrian traffic, on top of automobile traffic.

NW 23rd, NW 21st, Mississippi St., and many other streets have all now benefited from this policy change.

Related Documents

• PDOT's report on revising crosswalk criteria

Community Partners

• Northwest District Association (NWDA)Nobb Hill Business Association

Media Mentions

• "Safety Trumps Cost: Crossings get Stripes" Oregonian, April 12, 2007

Our Blog

• New Crosswalk Policy Adds to Safety of Main Streets

Milestones

• Thursday, April 5, 2007- Crosswalks installed on NW 23rd.

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