Removing Crosswalks is Not the Answer
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Throughout Georgia, marked crosswalks are disappearing at unsignalized intersections when the Georgia Department of Transportation resurfaces multi-lane roads. GDOT engineers point to research showing that marked crosswalks, on their own, are not enough to provide safe pedestrian crossings on multi-lane roads used by over 12,000 cars a day.
After reading GDOT’s justification for removing a crosswalk on Roswell Road, we reminded District 7 engineer Bryant Poole that federal guidelines recommend that where crosswalks alone are insufficient to create safe crossings, transportation agencies need to do more, not less. High-speed multi-lane roads like Roswell Road account for 65 percent of all pedestrian fatalities nationwide. Removing crosswalks does not solve the problem of getting pedestrians safely across the street.
If marked crosswalks, on their own, are inappropriate as a solution, engineers need to identify other solutions that enable pedestrians to cross the street safely and conveniently. As FHWA puts it, “Regardless of whether marked crosswalks are used, there remains the fundamental obligation to get pedestrians safely across the street. If one treatment does not accomplish the task adequately, then move on to the next one. Failure of one particular treatment is not a license to give up and do nothing.”