Abreu questions DOT on leading pedestrian intervals

Leading pedestrian intervals, or LPIs, are when the crosswalk signal allows pedestrians to begin crossing before vehicles get a green light.

This seems like a relatively straightforward and quick improvement that the council's data team found reduces pedestrian casualties by 12.7%.

How many signalized...

Intersections have received LPI treatment.

Absolutely.

We found LPIs to be one of the more effective and lower cost generally treatments in our toolbox.

And we're really proud of how rapidly we've been able to roll them out across the city.

What I will say is that just like any tool, the effectiveness will depend in part on the

context of that location, right?

They're really a tool that helps with turning conflicts more than anything.

And so places where we have heavy turns and LPI can have the greatest sort of bang for the buck.

And that, of course, there's also a finite number of intersections in the city.

So eventually you start to kind of bump up against it.

So I don't know, we could talk a little more about the specific numbers, but what I can say is that

Yeah, I guess to date we've done over 6,000 LPIs, and we continue to see that as an important tool and maximize our use of it.

Thank you.

I'd like to note that we were joined by Councilmember Krishnan.

Given the speed at which LPIs can be implemented, their effectiveness, and that no physical...

That no physical infrastructure changes are needed.

Why haven't LPIs been installed at more intersections?

Well, it's really a good question.

And part of the answer is we are continuously installing more.

But part of the answer is also that we want to make sure we're focused on the most dangerous locations.

A little bit to your...

question before, not every intersection in the city, not even every signalized intersection, has the same crash rate, right?

There are parts of the city with fewer pedestrians, fewer turning conflicts, places where the LPI would not provide nearly as much benefit.

And so we want to make sure that our signal timing engineers are spending their effort

places that need the LPIs, but that they're also doing things like looking at how to make a correct progression so that cars aren't speeding, right?

There are other things that our signal engineers do, and we want to keep them focused on the places that really have the most crashes.

I understand that LPIs are being done at the most dangerous intersections.

How many are...

In terms of your body of work, what have you determined to be the dangerous intersections and how many more should we be expecting to address the outstanding dangerous corners?

And then I have a separate question, which is, are NLPIs better regardless of the benefit being less?

I mean, you know, what I'll say, I guess, and maybe this is sort of the overall theme is, right, in theory, we can do everything everywhere all at the same time.

In reality, we need to focus our resources where we think they can have the greatest benefit.

I think you can be everywhere at any time, Commissioner.

I wish, I wish.

So, you know, that's the short answer.

I mean...

You mentioned also these high crash corridors or boulevards of death.

That's another thing, right?

We're always trying to balance and figure out how we can have the greatest possible impact and save the greatest number of lives.

And given that it's low cost, I would like to see a more rapid expansion of LPIs at these intersections.

And I understand that we're talking about resources, and this is one of those things that doesn't require that much resource.

So I think it's more of a question on the operationalizing of it.

When can we get it done and by when?

So if you could just please keep us in the loop on that expansion and where they're going to be implemented, we would love to see more.

Yeah, I'll absolutely huddle with my team on that.

Thank you.

All right.