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

Refer to: HOTO-1

Mr. Jack A. Brown
State Traffic Operations Engineer
Florida Department of Transportation
605 Suwannee Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0450

Dear Mr. Brown:

Thank you for faxing a copy of your December 3, 2001, letter regarding your request to experiment with pedestrian countdown signals at one intersection in Palm Beach County and one location in Sarasota County. Your fax was received on December 6, 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:

• The countdown indication must only be displayed during the flashing "Don’t Walk" portion of the pedestrian phase. (Your request omitted the word "flashing.")
• If the Florida Department of Transportation determines at any time that pedestrian countdown signals pose a potential safety hazard to either pedestrians or motorists, they must be removed and the sites must 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 2-year time period, for the two specified locations, subject to the three modifications outlined above. Should you wish to add additional sites in Florida to the experimentation plan, you may do so by notifying us in writing of the additional locations and agreeing to comply with the same data collection, reporting, and removal procedures contained in this experimentation approval.

For future reference purposes, we have assigned the following official experimentation number and title to your request: 4-244(Ex)--"Pedestrian Countdown Signals-FLDOT." Please refer to this number in future correspondence. We look forward to receiving notifications of implementation dates and 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