Urban Street Pattern and Pedestrian Traffic Safety

This study examined the effect of different urban street patterns on vehicle-pedestrian crash severity. Pedestrian crash data for the City of Calgary for the years 2003-2005 were used to estimate a partially constrained generalized ordered logit model. Besides street pattern, many variables related to drivers, road, environment and traffic characteristics were used as control variables. The results indicated that currently popular urban street patterns, like loops and lollipops design, were found to be associated with higher pedestrian crash severity, when compared to the traditional gridiron pattern.