| This study assesses pedestrian crossing options from the perspectives of crosswalk operations, pedestrian perceptions and preferences, and pedestrian safety. Operational analyses assisted in the determination of the effectiveness of pedestrian crossing options through the estimation of pedestrian crossing compliance rate, crossing time, level of service, and pedestrian conflicts with turning vehicles at signalized intersections. The study of pedestrian perceptions and preferences was based on a users survey that was developed and distributed to potential users crossing a divided urban boulevard. Finally, in the safety analysis, pedestrian related crashes were reviewed and summarized for the study corridor. Moreover, historical crash data from the state of Michigan were reviewed in order to evaluate the relative safety of various crossing locations. The study site used in this research was a 1 km (0.63 mi) long divided boulevard section of Grand River Avenue (M-43) between Abbott and Bogue Streets in downtown East Lansing, Michigan. The AADT was about 32,000 vehicles per day in both directions.; The results from the crossing compliance analysis indicate that a strong correlation exists between the presence of a positive type of traffic control and pedestrian spatial crossing compliance rate. The highest spatial crossing compliance was observed at the signalized intersection crosswalks (83.13%). However, the overall crossing compliance rate (i.e., compliance with both crosswalk location and pedestrian WALK signal indication) at the signalized crosswalks was very low (42.98%) compared to the observed spatial compliance. This indicates that a majority of pedestrians in the study site do not comply with the "DONT WALK" signal indication. The analysis of pedestrian crossing times at the signalized intersection crosswalks allowed the evaluation of the level of service of pedestrian crossings on the basis of average space per pedestrian. The analysis indicated that existing methodologies overestimated the pedestrian crossing times, thus refinements of such methodologies are recommended to account for the actual conditions in the study corridor. In the conflict study, interactions of pedestrians with right- and left-turning vehicles sharing the same green interval were examined and modeled using regression analysis techniques. The models yielded very satisfactory results. The analysis of the survey responses led to conclusions regarding the acceptability of various pedestrian crossing facilities and treatments by users, and provided important insights into the attitudes and preferences of pedestrians using the study site. The results from the survey analysis support the notion that properly marked pedestrian crossing facilities encourage users to cross at designated crossing locations. Among the various crossing options studied, pedestrian users at the study site perceived the marked midblock crosswalks the most favorable. The pedestrian crash data at the study site was limited. Thus statistical comparisons were avoided. |
