Walk Friendly Northampton Report CardPage 1 of 7
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COMMUNITY REPORT CARD AND FEEDBACK
Northampton, Massachusetts
August 29, 2012
Introduction
Thank you for submitting an application to the Walk Friendly Communities program on behalf of
Northampton, Massachusetts! A Walk Friendly Community is a city or town that has shown a
commitment to improving walkability and pedestrian safety through comprehensive programs,
plans and policies.
Each application was evaluated by at least three reviewers to provide a fair assessment of your
community and provide technical feedback on how to improve the walkability of your
community.
After thorough consideration of your application, we are designating Northampton as a Bronze
Walk Friendly Community. In reviewing the application, there were several areas that we were
particularly impressed with, including:
The partnership with your local law enforcement agency, which has provided us with
one of the few excellent examples of a City coordinating so many productive programs
with its police to promote pedestrian safety. Excellent work!
Very high walking rates, showing that walking is valued in your community.
Comprehensive network of trails and multiuse paths, which connect destinations to
ensure they can be used for recreational and transportation purposes.
Northampton has exhibited a desire to become a community that supports active
transportation. The application to the Walk Friendly Communities program is an endorsement of
that desire and it is our hope that the feedback and information we provide can help your
community improve in this regard. We also hope that, by identifying Northampton as a Bronze
Walk Friendly Community and highlighting some of these impressive programs on our website,
other communities can follow your example and build their own successful programs.
Despite those positive elements, we have noted several areas in which your community can
improve its policies, programs, and standards. Please continue to build upon this foundation to
work to improve your Walk Friendly Community designation. This report card provides detailed
feedback on how your community can take its programs and initiatives to the next level; take
the time to review the feedback and contact us with any questions.
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Primary Recommendations
This section identifies and provides suggestions for the most vital areas of improving
Northampton’s overall walkability. Additional details are provided in the following sections. We
recommend that you read these areas thoroughly and develop clear goals, benchmarks,
funding sources, and an implementation schedule for reaching these goals.
Deploy a comprehensive pedestrian counting program in locations across the City. Due
to low overall crash numbers, you may not be getting all of the info you need on where
to focus your projects from crash data alone. Conducting counts at certain intersections,
and especially where your trails intersect with busy roads, you may be able to identify
areas where high pedestrian volumes warrant enhanced facilities.
Develop a regular training program for City staff who work in the pedestrian area, such
as planners, engineers, law enforcement, and transit operators. There are many low-
cost options, like webinars, that help bring your team together to examine pedestrian
safety issues.
There are a somewhat low percentage of sidewalks, which is surely a byproduct of a
limited budget for installation. Consider a prioritization system that utilizes your
inventory, pedestrian counts, crash data, and other factors like proximity to
schools/senior centers to focus your improvements where they are needed. Developing
a pedestrian-specific plan would also help with this.
Feedback by Section
This remainder of this report card will provide detailed feedback and suggestions for each
section in the community assessment tool. Feedback will include research to support the
importance of this question as well as tools, guides, and case studies of successful
implementations in other communities.
Each section received an overall score as defined below:
Walk Friendly: The responses in this section indicate that your community is particularly
strong in this area with great efforts being made towards improving walkability. Even so,
there are always areas within this section where improvements and growth could be
made.
On the Right Track: This score indicates that your community does not exhibit the
characteristics to be truly walk friendly in this section, but that there are still good
existing programs or new programs that could be expanded. Please review our
suggestions on how you could improve the walkability in this area.
Needs Attention: This score indicates that your community does not yet demonstrate
strong programs, policies, and results, characteristic of a Walk Friendly Community
based on the responses in this section. Please review our suggestions carefully on how
you can create positive change in your community with both short- and long-term
objectives.
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Community Profile
On the Right Track
The amount of time spent on pedestrian issues in your community is great, but could be
increased. Consider splitting your subcommittees and advisory groups into mode-
specific task forces to ensure that pedestrian and bicycle issues remain balanced – it is
very common for bicycle issues to dominate the conversation.
Signing the International Charter for Walking would be a great way for City leadership to
demonstrate its commitment to enhancing walkability and pedestrian safety. In Gold-
level San Francisco, the Mayor signed a Pedestrian Safety Executive Directive to express
support for pedestrian safety – that directive laid out short- and long-term goals for
pedestrian safety, and launched a comprehensive effort to improve conditions for
pedestrians throughout the City.
Status of Walking
On the Right Track
The percentage of trips taken by foot in your community is outstanding! This is well over
the national average. Think about how you can improve the availability of transit service
to raise your public transit mode share – you'll probably see an increase in walking and
bicycling trips if you do that.
Your crash rate, based on your population and mode share, is quite low. The same can
be said for your pedestrian fatality rate, with only one fatality in the past five years.
However, your injury rate is extremely high – there are more injuries than total crashes.
You may want to check to see if your police are reporting all crashes, not just those
resulting in injuries. It is important to look at even non-injury crashes, because it gives
you a sense of where pedestrian/vehicle conflicts are happening.
It's great to see that you were able to leverage resources to invest in bike/ped facilities.
Hopefully the presence of new trails and sidewalks will help increase the already high
walking mode share.
Planning
On the Right Track
Though not a pedestrian-specific plan, your Comprehensive Plan does an excellent job
making recommendations for pedestrian improvements through roadway design and
other policy changes. Furthermore, it is great to see that you have already made
changes to your high priority corridors and are well on your way to enhancing the
medium priority corridors. While your performance measures/metrics are very specific
and appropriate, you should really consider incorporating safety targets into your plans.
The goal of having 100 percent of your roadways considered safe is good, but this is not
defined in your plan and so it is unclear if this involves a routine analysis of pedestrian
crash data. Monitoring all crashes and conflicts is essential, and this should be
incorporated into your evaluation process.
Your ADA plan seems very comprehensive. You should consider conducting an inventory
of your sidewalks and ramps to assess current conditions and identify those facilities in
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need of upgrades. Since your plan was last updated in 1995, this might be a helpful
process for identifying your next priorities for upgrades.
Your Transportation Policies document clearly shows that pedestrian and bicycle needs
are considered in all projects. I especially like how you have identified responsible
agencies for each item in your policy to create a sense of responsibility for each policy
element.
You have a very impressive and comprehensive approach to involving a variety of
perspectives in your planning process. Great job!
Great sidewalk policies! It might be worthwhile to omit the exception for requiring
sidewalks where commercial/retail development doesn't exist. This may not be a
destination for pedestrians, but a sidewalk could provide a valuable route connection
for walking trips in certain cases. Northampton could consider establishing dedicated
funding for sidewalk installation and maintenance as well as ADA compliance, other
than just using CDBG and other general funds.
The block length and street design requirements outlined in your application are
excellent. Specifically, the language regarding the prohibition of cul-de-sacs is
outstanding and should be used as a model for other communities. Very impressive!
For a relatively small community, you have a fantastic network of trails. Not only are
these available for recreational purposes, but many also link destinations like schools,
government buildings, attractions, and transportation hubs. Keep up the good work!
With a relatively low percentage of stops located within easy walking distance of
residences, it makes sense that the transit mode share numbers shown in the Census
are on the low side. You might consider a wayfinding signage system downtown to help
pedestrians find their way to bus stops – signs with information about how far they
need to walk (e.g. 5 minute walk to bus stop) are especially useful. The Pedestrian
Safety Guide for Transit Agencies is a useful tool that you can use to work together with
your transit agency to improve bus stop location, design and safety.
Your parking policies show a comprehensive understanding of how the pedestrian
environment can be enhanced through the placement and availability of parking.
Excellent!
Very impressive set of policies to encourage mixed-use, high-density development.
Many of these standards and policies should be used as models for other communities.
You have good examples of public amenities and other pedestrian-scale features that
can help create a sense of place. Consider exploring areas away from your downtown
that may need additional lighting – sometimes you can reduce night-time crashes by
installing lighting at key locations where pedestrian activity is common.
Education & Encouragement
Needs Attention
Great SRTS programs! Consider getting involved with the National Center for Safe
Routes to School's student travel tally and survey program to track student travel data.
There are ongoing training opportunities available through webinars – these low cost
options are great if you don't have a travel budget for visiting national conferences. Just
visit www.walkinginfo.org/webinars to learn more about the offerings from the PBIC. In-
person training on best practices for pedestrian planning and design is also available
from the PBIC – more info is available at www.walkinginfo.org/training.
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The Pace Car and Safety Village programs are excellent examples of unique ways to
communicate safety messages to both children and adults.
Your wayfinding program sounds like it will be a real success – consider including
information about your trails and transit stop locations on your kiosks. The City of
Philadelphia has set the bar for pedestrian wayfinding programs learn more about their
program here.
Great to see that you have Farmer's Markets and other community events to encourage
walking! A Ciclovia, or open streets event, may be just the thing to bring your
community outreach and encouragement to the next level. These involve closing down
a route of streets to automobiles and opening them up for walking and bicycling. Shortly
after receiving its Bronze-level Walk Friendly Communities designation, Wilsonville,
Oregon, launched its first ever open streets event. Check out our informational page
about these types of events here.
Engineering
On the Right Track
Excellent sidewalk design standards!
Your sidewalk coverage seems like it could be expanded, based on these numbers.
Funding is surely a challenge, so consider using crash data and your current sidewalk
inventory to identify the highest priority areas where you can fill in sidewalk gaps.
It is good to see that you have a sidewalk inventory, and your process for retrofitting
sidewalks seems very proactive. Since almost all of your curbs are upgraded, an
inventory of those probably isn't necessary at this point. Consider using a few additional
metrics to identify priority locations for sidewalk retrofits and installation, such as safety
data and pedestrian demand.
You have lots of bridges that provide pedestrian access, as well as numerous over and
underpasses specifically for nonmotorized travelers. Keep up the good work!
You have some great initiatives to improve safety at your signalized intersections -
especially the use of accessible pedestrian signals and pedestrian recall. Using a leading
pedestrian interval (LPI) would be really helpful at your high-volume intersections,
especially where right-turning conflicts are common. You should expand your coverage
of countdown signals beyond the 5 percent of intersections indicated in this application.
Having a standard for maximum cycle lengths might be a good idea to prevent wait
times that are very long.
It's good to see that you are using high-visibility crosswalk markings and maintaining
those regularly. Rapid Flashing Beacons have been shown to be effective in improving
yielding rates to pedestrians, so it's excellent to see that you are using those. More
information regarding your crosswalk placement practices would be helpful – is crash
data or pedestrian count information used to make those decisions? Also, explore
options for shortening your crossing distances – 110 feet is quite a long way for a
pedestrian to cross.
Good examples of using pedestrian refuge islands, curb extensions, and other roadway
design features. These responses show an advanced understanding of the tools
available to reduce crossing distances and provide safe and comfortable pedestrian
environments.
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Your approach to traffic calming is fantastic. I really like your criteria for evaluating
traffic calming projects – you are considering all of the right variables. Also, your list of
traffic calming devices is quite comprehensive.
Enforcement
Walk Friendly
It's great that you have a dedicated team of officers to enforce pedestrian safety laws.
That's a great resource, and honestly quite rare in most communities.
Regular enforcement of yielding laws is fantastic, as is the effort to provide educational
messages to drivers through your police department. Great work!
It's great to see that you cite drivers for failing to yield to pedestrians. Also, keeping
parked cars away from crosswalks and off of sidewalks is critical – it's good to see you're
doing that, too. Consider using photo enforcement to reduce red-light violations, which
can often improve pedestrian safety as well.
Great crossing guard policies!
It seems like the police department and other City departments collaborate regularly to
review problem areas and identify possible solutions. Great job!
Evaluation
On the Right Track
Northampton should begin counting pedestrians and bicyclists to help establish an
understanding of the baseline walking rate in the city, to help "make the case" for
funding pedestrian improvements, and to better understand where new pedestrian
facilities will be most helpful. A count program is paramount to evaluating project and
understanding what is successful and what is not, in terms of engineering, but also
education and enforcement, projects and programs. Consider participating in the
National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, or use their count forms and
methodology to begin your own counts.
It looks like you are using some excellent tools to help evaluate your pedestrian
environment and guide your infrastructure improvements. There are other tools, like
Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) that can helpful as well. Decatur, Georgia, a Silver-
level Walk Friendly Community used a Health Impact Assessment of their transportation
policies as a basis for prioritizing non-motorized improvements.
Your evaluation of the Street Smarts signs shows that you have a good understanding
and appreciation of using before and after studies to analyze the impact your
infrastructure improvements have on safety and pedestrian behavior.
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More Information
If you have questions or comments regarding this feedback, your community’s initiatives and
programs, or the application process in general, we’d like to hear from you. Please contact:
Carl Sundstrom, 919-843-4963, sundstrom@hsrc.unc.edu
Dan Gelinne, 919-962-8703, gelinne@hsrc.unc.edu
You can also send general inquiries to info@walkfriendly.org