Design and monitoring of a safe pedestrian crossing facility: via Venezia Giulia, Rome

Nearly all the travels have their “on foot” part; walking is therefore part of the everyday life of everyone and must regarded as the most important mean of transport. Nearly all the “on foot” movements are “interrupted” by crossings of car streets; crossing points are by far the most dangerous and uncomfortable spots for pedestrians and are therefore the crucial points of a well designed and functional pedestrian networks. The design of good pedestrian facilities should be made according to pedestrians’ needs, it should enhance actual and perceived safety levels. Pedestrians’ accidents are fortunately relatively rare events, the location of intervention priority only on the base of statistical data is therefore not a satisfying approach, rather more or less analytical “preventive” method, suitable to evaluate the functional level of crossing facilities, should be used. Evaluation methods should be based on simple and easy to be made measures, and should return objective and easy to be read results. The method used in the via Venezia Giulia case study is focused on the characterization of vehicular flow and of the “functional quality” of the crossing facility, which is based on quantification of pedestrians behaviour and pedestrians/car drivers interaction; moreover short interviews with users have been made to understand reactions to the novelty. The designed crossing point is located in a peripheral zone of Rome and connect a school to a park; the crossed street has one lane/direction, a rather wide section and is characterized by high vehicular speeds. The adopted solution is characterized by the provision of a median refuge, to divide the crossing distance into two parts so to allow pedestrians to interact with just one vehicular flow at time; the provision of the island results in a change of alignment for cars that induce drivers to slow down. Observations have been made before and right after the intervention and shows good results; observations made more than one year after the construction of the facilities have been used to evaluate long term effects.