Designing Pedestrian Safety Features for Year-Round Maintenance

Details

• Creators:
  Veneziano, David
• Corporate Creators:
  Minnesota. Department of Transportation. Office of Research & Innovation
• Contributors:
  Mitchell, Timothy
• Corporate Contributors:
  CTC & Associates LLC ; Iowa State University. Institute for Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Design Operations Pedestrian Safety Snow Winter Maintenance
• Publication/ Report Number:
  2023-18TS
• Resource Type:
  Brief
• Geographical Coverage:
  Minnesota
• Corporate Publisher:
  Minnesota. Department of Transportation. Office of Research & Innovation
• Abstract:
  Pedestrian fatalities make up almost 14% of traffic fatalities in Minnesota. While MnDOT continues to prioritize pedestrian safety, maintaining certain safety countermeasures can present challenges, particularly in winter. Keeping walkways, curb ramps, median refuge islands and other features safe requires keeping them free from snow and ice. Snowplows, however, may have difficulty navigating around pedestrian safety treatments, and snow may pile up in these areas. Agencies may need additional equipment to clear walkways and other areas. Whether adjacent property owners or public works agencies are responsible for keeping the pedestrian–roadway interface clear is also not always well established. Little research exists that explicitly considers the year-round maintenance needs of pedestrian safety countermeasures. To ensure that pedestrian treatment designs consider winter maintenance issues, MnDOT sought guidance and options for designing, installing and maintaining cost-effective year-round safety measures. The goal of this project was to identify best practices for designing pedestrian safety countermeasures that will reduce the risks of crashes and other incidents, are maintainable year-round and are compatible with effective winter maintenance operations.
• Content Notes:
  This Technical Summary pertains to Report 2023-18, “Designing and Implementing Maintainable Pedestrian Safety Countermeasures,” published June 2023. More information is available at mdl.mndot.gov
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:0430ff004f0c89c0b996c1cfcce230e330ac9b0200a411c6afcd66e1e8060e99
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/67877/dot_67877_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 363.00 KB ]