a technical guide for conducting pedestrian safety assessments

2 A TECHNICAL GUIDE FOR CONDUCTING PEDESTRIAN SAFETY ASSESSMENTS FOR CALIFORNIA CITIES
PREFACE
During the last 10 years, California has averaged over 730 pedestrian fatalities per year. Pedestrian safety has been a
challenge to many California cities/communities, and improvement in pedestrian safety is among priorities for these
cities. With funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, the Institute of Transportation Studies Technology Transfer Program, University of California Berkeley
(known briefly as Tech Transfer) will be offering free Pedestrian Safety Assessments (PSA) to California cities starting
in 2008.
This report describes technical components of the California PSA program, and will serve as a technical guide for
evaluators to conduct PSAs. This guide was built on the material contained in the recently published FHWA report
titled Pedestrian Road Safety Audit Guidelines and Prompt Lists (July 2007). We incorporated additional technical
elements as deemed appropriate for California and available resources.
Many individuals and agencies have contributed input and ideas to this guide. Particular thanks are due for Christopher
Murphy and Lisa Dixon of OTS, Ken Kochevar of FHWA, William Kootsikas and Rosalind Tianco of NHTSA,
Richard Haggstrom and Ken McGuire of Caltrans, Bruce Appleyard of UC Berkeley, and Charles Zegeer of UNC Chapel
Hill. We also owe special thanks to Dan Burden of Glatting Jackson, who reviewed several drafts of this manual and
provided invaluable suggestions. Rudolph Umbs of FHWA provided very helpful comments for the final draft.
Opinions and ideas expressed in this report are those of the authors and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the
agencies mentioned herein.