Safety-Based Prioritization for Youth Pedestrian Travel Planning: Applying Systemic Pedestrian Safety Analysis to Youth Travel
Source: Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC)
Children and youth travel around their communities for school, play, work and a variety of other reasons. Addressing safety concerns in places where youth walk – or might walk if conditions were better – is critical to protecting young people and supporting their independence and mobility. Funds for safety improvements are always limited, so a framework for decision making is needed to identify the locations that require the most urgent attention.
While the systemic approach is becoming more widely used in transportation planning, it has never been applied specifically to understanding youth travel risks. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 893 -Systemic Pedestrian Safety Analysis, describes a process for identifying and prioritizing high risk locations and applying countermeasures to prevent serious pedestrian crashes.
This information brief applies the steps in the Systemic Pedestrian Safety Analysis report to present a process for assessing high risk locations for youth pedestrian crashes specifically. It also draws heavily on participation in the development of the Systemic Pedestrian Safety Analysis report, knowledge gained from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) Vision Zero for Youth Demonstration Project with the city of Philadelphia using a systemic approach for compiling data and assessing risk factors for youth pedestrian crashes; and the work of the PBIC and National Center for Safe Routes to School to understand and prevent child pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and deaths.
While the systemic approach is becoming more widely used in transportation planning, this is the first time that the approach has been applied specifically to understanding youth travel risks. Using the systemic approach to understand key risk factors can provide a better understanding of what to address and where. Proactive, safety-based planning provides an opportunity to expand travel safety for children, families and other community members, playing a critical role in saving lives on a community’s roads.
