Federal Highway Administration
400 Seventh Street
Washington, DC 20590

December 5, 2002

Refer to: HOTO-1

Mr. Miguel d’Escoto
Commissioner
City of Chicago Department of Transportation
Bureau of Traffic
30 North LaSalle Street
Chicago, IL 60602-2570

Re: 7-39(E)-Yellow Green Pavement Markings for School Zone Crosswalks

Dear Mr. d’Escoto:
Over the past 2 months, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has received numerous requests for experimentation with yellow-green pavement markings for school crosswalks. With the exception of the city of Chicago, the number of crosswalks that will be treated with the yellow-green markings is very limited. Your plan for experimentation, therefore, provides the best opportunity to conclusively evaluate the effectiveness of these markings on driver behavior and pedestrian safety.

In a telephone conversation on August 26 with Mr. Robert Cyboran, of your office, Mr. Carl K. Andersen of the FHWA’s Office of Safety R&D, proposed to contract with an independent researcher to assist in expanding the experimental plan for the evaluation of the yellow-green pavement markings. The intent is for the independent researcher to serve as a consultant to your project officer, providing expertise in human factors experiments and specific knowledge of prior evaluations of crosswalk markings. Mr. Cyboran will coordinate and report to the city of Chicago during this experiment.

With your permission, the FHWA will contract with Mr. Richard Knoblauch, Center for Applied Research, to travel to Chicago and meet with Mr. Cyboran and to review potential data collection sites. Mr. Knoblauch will provide information regarding experimental plans and data required for statistical validation of results. We hope to use the city of Chicago’s experimental plan as a concept for other municipalities, to enable consolidation and comparison of experimental results from various localities and over various timeframes.

We are hopeful that the results of your experiment with yellow-green pavement markings will provide a definitive answer to the potential benefits of this technology.

Sincerely yours,

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