Project Statement: The City of Port Orchard has experienced near misses at its downtown crosswalks. The problem was that motorists were not paying close attention to pedestrians at crossing points. Staff looked for ways to solve this problem. The solution that worked the best was to utilize Orange flags when crossing.
Project Summary: The Citizens of Port Orchard were concerned about near misses at the Downtown cross-walks. This was attributed to the fact that some of the motorists were not paying close attention to the pedestrians at cross-walks. Due to the budget constraints, the City staff had to look for safe and economical solutions. We also collaborated with Downtown businesses to come up with acceptable solutions. Several options were evaluated and models from other cities were examined. Staff settled on using Orange flags which were tested at one of our cross-walks for a period of one month. Our determination was that this experiment worked in making this crossing safer. This led the City to with approval of Downtown businesses to use them for other crosswalks in this area. So far, it resulted in zero accidents and total elimination of near misses there. This is a success story that will be replicated in other parts of the City.