Signals for safe crossings

State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky will introduce legislation next week for a city-wide pilot program to install countdown signals at traffic lights to show pedestrians how much time they have left to cross the street.
Government studies and public interest group research has shown that these timers, that usually begin at 30 seconds and continue to zero, reduce the number of auto accidents involving pedestrians.
According to a 2003 study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the city experienced by far the largest number of auto crash fatalities annually from 1998-2000, averaging 371 per year.
Nearly half of those casualties were pedestrians who account for an average of 179 fatalities annually. No other major metropolitan area has numbers similar to these, with the national average near one pedestrian death out of every 10 total crash fatalities.
The program has been instituted successfully in areas throughout Washington D.C., Seattle, WA and Santa Monica, CA.
Stavisky has not finalized where these countdown signals, each costing about $300, would be implemented. “I would hope that we could work with the Department of Transportation (DOT) to select these sites,” Stavisky said. “It seems to me that at each location where someone was killed would be a good starting point.”
“In each of the last five years, pedestrian fatalities have decreased,” said DOT Spokesman Chris Gilbride. “In 2005, they reached the lowest point since 1910.
However, DOT is always looking for ways to improve pedestrian safety and is considering conducting a countdown pedestrian signal pilot program.”