davis_square | help us count traffic! (Reply)

We need a few volunteers to help us evaluate a new pedestrian safety option for crosswalks in Somerville called a pedestrian-head-start. With a pedestrian-head-start a person crossing a street will get the walk-signal 3 to 5 seconds before a light turns green for cars: giving pedestrians a chance to enter the intersection before turning cars. Cars see the pedestrians and yield to them as they are already in the crosswalk before they get the green light.

Currently in Somerville pedestrians must push a button and wait for an “all-walk” phase where all the traffic is stopped and pedestrians can cross without any conflicts. A disadvantage to the all-walk is that few pedestrians are willing to wait for the signal and end up crossing against the light. Often a walker will push the walk button and proceed before getting the walk signal. Then when the signal finally changes, all the cars end up waiting for a walk signal that serves no-one. Even when walkers do wait for the lights, both cars and pedestrians have to wait longer for the signal to proceed.

Cambridge has been using the Pedestrian-head-start for many years now. We need eight volunteers to help us do a comparative study of two intersections in Cambridge and Somerville. The data we gather will help us to measure safety factors between the two crossing-light methods.

We’re flexible about when the counts take place-- either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of next week-- sometime near the evening rush hour on one of these days. We expect one count will take between one and two hours to conduct. If you’re interested in helping, please email mark.e.chase@gmail.com

For a video on the Pedestrian Head Start and how it works, please see this video: http://www.streetfilms.org/lpi-leading-pedestrian-interval/