Project History of A2 Walks (starting at the present and working back)
June 2011- onward: The hard work begins. The summer of 2011 will be focused on educating drivers about the new pedestrian ordinance, working with police to ensure targeted enforcement occurs, and working with our partners at the City of Ann Arbor to develop a strong crosswalk design process.
January-May 2011: We gathered data on how other communities are approaching this issue, researched best practices, spoke with local/national experts, expanded our coalition of partners, studied behavior at local crosswalks and surveyed local drivers to better understand their behavior. All of this information will help guide the development and implementation of our community-wide education campaign and development of crosswalk design guidelines.
December 2010: WBWC received a Building Healthy Communities grant from Washtenaw County Public Health to educate pedestrians and drivers about the new pedestrian crossing ordinance. WBWC will also work with the City to ensure mid-block crosswalks are designed and signed using best practice engineering treatments that enhance pedestrian safety and motorist yield behavior. Grant partners include the City of Ann Arbor, DDA, and Thomson Reuters.
July 19, 2010, Ann Arbor City Council unanimously adopted a new pedestrian ordinance requiring motorists to stop for pedestrians within or approaching mid-block crosswalks. This ordinance is now among the strongest in Michigan, if not the strongest.
New Ordinance: Chapter 126:10:148a, Pedestrians crossing streets: When traffic-control signals are not in place or are not in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall stop and yield the right-of-way to every pedestrian approaching or within a crosswalk.
Read more in the following articles: annarbor.com and Ann Arbor Chronicle
October 2009- July 2010: WBWC members worked with council members, the mayor and the city attorney’s office to research and craft a stronger pedestrian crossing ordinance.
October 2009: WBWC held Ann Arbor’s (and possibly Michigan’s) first Pedestrian Forum. The purpose of the event was to explore the issue of why motorists failed to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks and engage the community around the topic of improving the pedestrian safety in Ann Arbor. Panelists were Susan Pollay (DDA Director), Eli Cooper (Transportation Manager), Pat Cawley (Senior Project Manager), Kristen Larcom (City Attorney), Officer Patton (Ann Arbor Police Department), Carolyn Grawi (Director of Advocacy and Education, Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living), Robert Wagner (Director of Lurie Terrace Senior Retirement Center), and Rory Neuner (Urban Policy Specialist for the Michigan Environmental Council). Outcome: Ann Arbor had an ambiguous, hard to enforce pedestrian crossing ordinance.
WBWC Member Matt Grocoff developed this video regarding the problems found at Ann Arbor crosswalks.
Minutes from the Pedestrian Forum on October 14, 2009
May 2009: WBWC organized "Walk, Talk & Chalk," a walking audit of some of Ann Arbor's old west side. Attendees included WBWC members, individuals invited by Ann Arbor's Center for Independent Living, Council Member Hohnke, and members of the public. The purpose of the walk was to identify which issues were impediments to walkability, even in one of Ann Arbor's most walkable neighborhoods. And the winner was... crosswalks! For those unable to dash across the street, busy streets were uncrossable in locations lacking a signalized crosswalk. We discovered seniors were being taxied across the street from Lurie Terrace to work out at the Y, because the the crosswalk at 3rd/Huron was not respected by motorists. This intersection has since been fixed with through the use of a HAWK signal, but the larger issue of crosswalk safety remains. View a few pictures from our walk.
