Pedestrian Signal Safety - AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety

232
NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON UNIFORM TRAFFIC CONTROL DEVICES
General Session—Friday, January 20, 2006—Arlington, Virginia
Moved by Friedman, seconded by Pusey to approve the proposed revisions to Section 4.E.10 as
recommended by the Signals Committee (Attachment No. 1).
Moved by Hawkins, seconded by Sparks to change the proposed new Standard paragraph number
5 in Section 4.E.10 relating to pedestrian clearance time to Guidance and change the word “shall” to
“should”. Motion passed 31-1-2.
Vote on the original motion to approve Section 4.E.10 as amended (Attachment No. 1) passed
unanimously.
Revisions to walking speeds in Section 4.E.10
The Pedestrian Task Force of the Signals Technical Committee proposed revised text for Section
4.E.10 to address two different issues:
1. Concern raised by the Public Rights-of-Way Access Advisory Committee that the pedestrian
walking speed of 4 ft./sec. in the 2003 MUTCD (and preceding editions) did not appropriately
address the needs of the disabled community as they relate to safe crossing of streets at
signalized intersections.
2. Concern raised by various organizations (including ITE and AAA) that the pedestrian
walking speed of 4 ft./sec. in the 2003 MUTCD (and preceding editions) did not appropriately
address the needs of senior citizens as they relate to safe crossing of streets at signalized
intersections.
The information presented at the January 2005 meeting by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI)
concerning pedestrian crossing technologies provided a reasonably large sample size and good
analysis relating to the speed of pedestrians and was used as the basis of setting the pedestrian
walking speed at 3.5 ft./sec., which is approximately a 15th-percentile walking speed. The same TTI
research also concluded that 3.0 ft./sec. was the 15th-percentile walking speed for senior citizens.
The Signals Technical Committee discussed pedestrian walking speed issues at length. It was felt
that changes to the current MUTCD guidance were appropriate to address the above-cited concerns
and to address operational alternatives available through current technology.
The Signals Technical Committee took the following four actions related to this topic:
1. Modify the walking speed used to calculate the pedestrian clearance time and include it as a
Standard rather than Guidance as in the current MUTCD.
2. Delete the existing Guidance statement that is being upgraded to a Standard in Item 1. Also,
for consistency with the walking speed included in the prior recommendation, change the
existing Guidance statement to note that a walking speed of less than 3.5 ft./sec. (rather
than 4 ft./sec.) should be used to determine the pedestrian clearance time at locations where
pedestrians who walk slower than normal or pedestrians who use wheelchairs routinely use
the crosswalk.