Guidelines for the retrofit installation of accessible pedestrian signals by the Virginia Department of Transportation

In late 2000, the Northern Virginia District of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) received a request from a visually impaired citizen to install accessible pedestrian signals (APS) at an intersection in Falls Church. Since there were no national or state guidelines for this type of installation, the district was asked to install APS at an intersection in a pilot effort and to develop appropriate guidelines that VDOT could use statewide for future installations. The Virginia Transportation Research Council was asked to assist in developing the guidelines. Further, a committee composed of representatives from VDOT, the Federal Highway Administration, the Virginia Department for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and the blind and visually impaired community (formal organizations and individual citizen activists) was established to provide overall guidance and advice. A Phase I report documented the initial efforts to develop the guidelines and described the following sections of the guidelines: (1) a procedure for requesting APS, (2) the basic requirements for retrofitting, (3) an intersection evaluation methodology, and (4) a funding process. In addition, the report recommended that the procedures in these four sections be piloted by using them to identify other appropriate intersections at which different types of APS equipment could be installed. This Phase II report describes the results of the pilot with regard to the first four sections of the guidelines and the development of the final two sections of the guidelines: the basic statewide specifications for APS equipment, and the installation procedures. The final guidelines for installing APS at an existing intersection are included in an appendix.