Global Benchmarking Program

Improving Pedestrian Safety on Urban Arterials: Learning from Australasia

This report documents the findings from an international study tour undertaken as part of the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of International Programs, to research Australian and New Zealand approaches to reducing pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries on urban, signalized arterial. The report identifies key innovations in policy, planning, and design that may be successfully applied in the United States to help reverse the current trend of increasing pedestrian and other vulnerable road user fatalities and serious injuries on arterial roadways – the corridors on which a majority of U.S. pedestrian fatalities occur. The report focuses on policies that effectively prioritize, standardize, and fund engineering practices that facilitate integration of new and emerging pedestrian safety strategies on urban signalized arterials. The report also identifies data-driven planning practices and design standards and features that effectively integrate pedestrian safety considerations into urban signalized arterial projects through a Safe System approach, in conjunction with performance-based planning and programming that is coordinated with land use planning.