VEHICLE AND PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENT MODELS FOR MEDIAN LOCATIONS

It has long been recognized that medians are an effective method of in creasing vehicular safety and capacity on urban and suburban arterials . Medians can provide an additional lane for through traffic by removi ng left turning vehicles from the traffic stream. Medians are also gen erally considered to be beneficial to pedestrian safety and operations . A number of studies have been conducted on modeling the expected num ber of vehicle accidents, and, hence, incremental benefits resulting f rom the installation of different median types. These studies did not, however, determine the expected pedestrian benefits resulting from th e installation of medians. This paper presents the results of a study conducted for the Federal Highway Administration. It presents the acti vities and results of developing accident predictive equations for bot h vehicle-vehicle and pedestrian-vehicle accidents due to different me dian types. The model was developed for urban and suburban unlimited a ccess arterials. The results are not applicable to rural environment o r to limited access arterials.