Federal Highway Administration
400 Seventh Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590

Refer to: HOTO-1

Mr. Bond Yee
Deputy Director and City Traffic Engineer
25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 345
San Francisco, CA 94102-4576

Dear Mr. Yee:

Thank you for your January 8 letter requesting approval to expand your experimentation with pedestrian countdown signals from 14 locations to as many as 600 locations throughout the City of San Francisco. We apologize for the delay in our reply. Due to irradiation of all mail addressed to government agencies in Washington, DC, significant delays in delivery are being experienced. Your letter was not received until February 19.

We have reviewed your request and concur with it, as long as the countdown display is only provided during the flashing Don’t Walk interval. (It is our understanding that this has been the case with the 14 locations previously approved and that, per the guidelines of the California Traffic Control Devices Committee, you do plan to continue this practice with all additional installations.) We believe the broad statistical comparisons of pedestrian injury totals with "before and after" conditions and with a control group of non-countdown locations, which are included in your expanded evaluation plan, will be beneficial.

As indicated in previous correspondence, for future reference purposes, we have assigned the following official experimentation number and title to your request: IV-220(Ex)--"Pedestrian Countdown Signals - San Francisco." Please refer to this number in future correspondence. If we can be of further assistance, please contact Mr. Scott Wainwright on 202-366-0857.

Sincerely yours,

Shelley J. Row, P.E.
Director, Office of Transportation
Operations