Pedestrian Safety and Mobility Aids for Crossings at Bus Stops
Final Report
Source: New Jersey Department of Transportation, The Federal Highway Administration
"New Jersey State law prohibits pedestrians from crossing between intersections (mid block) where a mid block crossing does not exist. However, enforcement of these regulations is not practical. Furthermore, difficulty in making this crossing maneuver discourages use of transit. The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ TRANSIT) recognize that solutions to alleviate this situation are few and that alternatives such as pedestrian overpasses are not feasible due to the relatively large expense. Therefore, NJDOT and NJ TRANSIT have initiated a project to investigate solutions that would benefit pedestrians and encourage mass transit ridership. Several measures are available for signalized intersections. However, unsignalized intersections and mid block crossings pose significantly more challenges in terms of safely accommodating pedestrian safety and mobility. The time critical need to access a bus stop location poses an additional challenge.
"In order to properly develop criteria for identifying specific location deficiencies, the NJIT Project Team proposes a human centered approach for evaluating an array of creative solutions to address pedestrian crossing and access to bus stops along state highways. As the NJDOT maintains the state highway system, it is imperative that the potential solutions are acceptable to the NJDOT. Otherwise, it is likely that the solutions developed as part of the study, however seemingly functional, would not be implemented."
