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II Invest in Alternative Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Strategies If your city decides to take actions to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, you will need to consider two important items — (1) WHERE to make improvements and (2) WHAT strategies to invest in. However, research into pedestrian and bicycle safety suggests that traditional thinking about WHERE and WHAT is unlikely to yield positive results. WHERE to make Improvements: Traditionally, safety analysts would review their road systems and then focus their safety investments on locations with large numbers of priority crash types (Road Departure, Right Angle, etc.) However, after Minnesota adopted serious crashes (those involving severe injuries and fatalities) as the State's safety performance measure, it was determined that this reactive approach of chasing after serious crashes around the system was not an effective strategy. Serious crashes were widely scattered and for the most part occurred at locations that did not have any prior serious crashes during the study period. It was concluded that the presence of one serious crash at a particular location was not a good predictor of a second serious crash. It appears that safety analysts focused on serious crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists face these same challenges: • Serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes are widely scattered among cities in Minnesota • 588 (69%) of Minnesota's 856 cities had NO serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes during a ten-year study period (2011-2020). • 228,000 (99%) of the approximately 230,000 locations in Minnesota's crash mapping tool had NO serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes during the ten-year study period. • Only 6 (0.7%) cities (Brooklyn Center, Duluth, St. Cloud, Columbia Heights, St. Paul, and Minneapolis) had two or more locations with multiple serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes during the ten-year study period. • Only ONE location in the entire State (University Avenue at Northtown Drive in Blaine) had TWO pedestrian and bicycle crashes that resulted in fatalities during the study period. This information supports a conclusion that using a reactive approach based on prior serious crashes would not be effective in identifying high priority locations for safety investment. This information also supports the use of a proactive, systemic approach that is based on identifying the characteristics of the locations with serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes and then searching road systems for other locations with similar characteristics. Previous safety studies have identified several roadway characteristics as being over -represented at the locations with serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes, including: • Streets with a MSA designation: Streets on the MSA system account for 3% of statewide road mileage but 26%of serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes. • Intersection Traffic Control: Along MSA streets, more than 60%of serious pedestrian and bicycle crashes occur at intersections and almost 50% of these are controlled by traffic signals. • Transit Stops: In Minnesota cities, approximately 80% of locations with a serious pedestrian and bicycle crash had a transit stop. All of this suggests that the determination of where to invest in safety improvements be based on a systemic review of a city's road system that is primarily focused on MSA streets and secondarily at signalized intersections with transit stops. 15 Page 147 of 185