Pedestrian Safety Gets Big Boost From New Cincinnati Initiative
A bump-out on Rockdale Avenue, Cincinnati.
When drivers habitually overlooked the school-zone speed limit outside of a Cincinnati elemetary school, the city realized it had a problem. If it used its standard process to address the situation—that is, doing a traffic study, which would then turn into an engineering project—the street could take months or even years to fix. So, the city tried something different: It set up barriers on each side of Rockdale Avenue to create a bump-out that narrowed the street, before adding a center line later on. A study following the barrier installation showed driver compliance with the speed limit increased from 50% to 67%.
The overall cost to the city? Around $5,000, and a project that took weeks instead of months. The Rockdale Academy bump-out helped serve as proof of concept for an innovative new structure recently approved by the Cincinnati City Council.
Cincinnati’s new pedestrian safety team is a five-member unit embedded within the city’s Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE). Using simple materials such as rubber speed mats, plastic barriers and high-visibility paint, the team will execute rapid-response, tactical interventions on troubled roadways and intersections.
The move was the culmination of a coordinated effort from the neighborhood level to city council to the mayor’s office to address the city’s rate of vehicle–pedestrian crashes (more than 260 in 2022, down from a high of 431 in 2018). And it wasn’t the only positive safety change afoot in Cincinnati.
Council Member Mark Jeffreys, an advocate for road safety and a champion of the city’s recent Complete Streets Ordinance, compares this approach to the status quo: “In the typical city procurement process, even if you wanted to put in a stop sign, that would take six-plus months. You have to prepare the bid, you have to bid it out, that’s three months, you have to get those bids back, you have to award it, you have to schedule it.”
Under the new structure, “we can implement a lot of these projects within weeks,” says Jeffreys.
Joe Nickol, principal of Yard & Company, a Cincinnati-based urban design and planning firm, identifies two immediate cost savings: “Projects moving in-house over private bids saves the city money. Cheaper materials that can be installed with less skilled labor saves money.”
But Nickol says the savings can be measured beyond the individual projects. “Saving lives saves money. Creating ways to get around town more easily saves households money.”
In another pilot case for this rapid-response approach, rubber speed mats were installed on a stretch of Winneste Avenue. A survey after the intervention showed speeding decreased from 90% of cars to 11%, with the average speed decreasing from 37 mph to 20.
The Department of Transportation and Engineering estimates a “yearly savings of $250,000 to $300,000” from using in-house resources over the standard planning process. It projects that the savings will allow the department to do 50% more safety enhancements for the same budget.
In addition to the short-term promises from the new tactical pedestrian team, Cincinnati has just passed a Complete Streets Ordinance, which will programmatically change the city’s transportation infrastructure.
The city currently repaves 50–75 miles of streets each year (out of a total of about 3,100 lane miles). Crews working on these projects will now have a 30-point checklist that addresses the needs of all users and not just automotive throughput. Changes could include adding protected bike lanes, curb extensions, pedestrian islands, etc. The crews will even look for opportunities to add parklets, or neighborhood wayfinding.
The 30-point checklist that Cincinnati’s tactical pedestrian team uses. (Click to enlarge.)
And these changes aren’t merely suggestions, they’re a default, says Jeffreys. If the crew doesn’t implement them, “they have to justify why they didn’t.” He says projects from the Complete Streets and tactical pedestrian teams will be evaluated yearly, which “enables more transparency and better decision-making on our part.”
Also underway is a project to add leading pedestrian intervals to signalized intersections (a re-timing of the signal so that pedestrians receive a green light several seconds before motorists do, to allow them to enter the intersection and be visible). The city will make the changes in 130 school zones within 11 months, followed by recreation centers and business districts.
Council Member Jeffreys encourages citizens to be safety champions in their neighborhoods. “People who live in a neighborhood know where the problem areas are. You know that people take this turn too wide or you have a dangerous slip lane. Advocate and be very specific on what the problem is,” especially via social media, he advises. The City of Cincinnati website has made this especially easy for citizens by allowing people to report local trouble spots.
Asked whether Cincinnati’s model would extend to other cities, Jeffreys is unequivocal: “Anytime you can have a solution that’s as good as what you are currently doing and cheaper and faster, I think you should do it … I’m a big believer that we don’t need the perfect.”
Americans are suckers for the idea of a moonshot, of taking a big, challenging risk and earning a huge payoff. The problem is, these moonshots usually fail, especially when they're trying to fix complex, chronic problems like traffic safety. There's a better way.