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

Refer to: HOTO-1

Mr. Thomas E. Bryer
Director
Bureau of Highway Safety and Traffic Engineering
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
P.O. Box 2047
Harrisburg, PA 17105-2047

Dear Mr. Bryer:

Thank you for faxing a copy of your November 2, 2001, letter regarding your request to experiment with pedestrian countdown signals at various locations throughout the State of Pennsylvania. Your fax was received on December 12, 2001. Your original letter still has not been received due to mail quarantines here in Washington, DC. We have reviewed the material that was submitted in support of your request to experiment, and we concur with it, with the following exceptions:

• Under the heading of "Site Restoration," you indicate that if it is determined that pedestrian countdown signals pose a potential safety hazard to either pedestrians or motorists, they will be removed and the site(s) will be restored to comply with the standards of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. We will require that under these circumstances the site(s) be restored to comply with the standards of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).
• Also, please note that the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Transportation Operations retains the right to terminate approval of the experimentation at any time if there is an indication of safety concerns.

Your experimentation request is approved for a 3-year time period, subject to the two modifications outlined above. We compliment you on your statewide approach to this experimentation and we appreciate the controls and reporting requirements that you have outlined in regard to site selections and implementations by your department and by local jurisdictions in the State.

For future reference purposes, we have assigned the following official experimentation number and title to your request: 4-243(Ex)--"Pedestrian Countdown Signals-PennDOT." Please refer to this number in future correspondence. We look forward to receiving notifications of site selections, implementation dates, your semiannual progress reports and final report. 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