Hi Gene, Annalyn and All, This is quite a brilliant piece of work. Beginning with Lester's very clever idea to do prioritizations within each community board right down through the recommended scoring changes. You've very adroitly snuck in the other issues such as DW's without ever losing focus on the APS's as was Matt's request. There are a couple of copy edit things to fix, but other than that, I think this should go to Matt. if I had one concern, it was someone in an outer borough, making a request for a n aps and that request being worth only one point. No doubt, in most cases, there would be other aspects of the intersection that would warrant and receive points. I don't remember, but in the original tool, do leading turns get points? (Hope I've used the right term; I mean those turns that happen at the beginning of the walk signal.) And also, does the presence of LPI's get a point value? That's it for this post, one more coming up, smile. Karen _____ From: passcoalition-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:passcoalition-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gene Bourquin DHA Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2011 8:18 AM To: PASS listserv Subject: [passcoalition] revised proposal for modification to the prioritization tool Dear colleagues, Annalyn and I met the other evening and reviewed each category in the prioritization tool. We revised and fine tuned my original draft proposal based on our experiences and the input from other coalition members. I am posting the results of our efforts. Everyone's input is needed and valuable, and Annalyn and I really want to get more input before we meet with the MOPD and DoT again. You can make public comments or ask questions here on the listserv, or contact us off the list by email. Thanks! Here is the current proposal. The APS prioritization tool should reflect the uni nature of New York City, especially in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. The prioritization should reflect the character of these urban environments more consistently and weigh the factors differently when considering APS installations. We prefer that there be a focus on citizens who are blind who are living and working in New York City. In our city there are so many attractions, multiple public transit lines, and facilities for people with visual impairments, that these features may not be considered as critically unique when considering where APS will be most needed and used. Meanwhile, major new construction around the City has created new risks and a need for information about signaling. The 59 existing community board districts in the boroughs define well-established neighborhoods. The Department of Transportation has traditionally worked with these entities and these boards often have valuable input on transportation and street geometry issues. Prioritization of installations for APS would not begin to make the entire city accessible for blind and low vision pedestrians if we were to prioritize on a city-wide basis. Therefore we suggest that prioritization happen within the boarders established by community boards, where the needs of neighborhoods may be fairly ranked by the object measurements of the prioritization tool(s). The results would be that the crosswalks in each neighborhood which need APS would receive the most timely consideration. The current tool appears to be well-suited for Staten Island, but for the other boroughs we recommend the following modification be made to the tool: Geometrics: Change item: Islands or medians: 5 points Rationale: Islands and medians at newly constructed bicycle lanes create risks throughout the boroughs. Properly located APS along with appropriate detectable warning surfaces (DWS) can improve the safety of segmented crosswalks. Consider these added categories: Painted or delineated bulb-outs: 8 Rationale: Establishing shorter crossing lengths at many crosswalks is being accomplished by painted and bollard-delineated bulb-outs. Blind pedestrians have no way to know where to stand. Properly located APS and surface treatments (DWS) can make these crossing accessible. Transit facilities nearby: Change entire category to: None 0 Major transportation intersections and hubs: 6 Rationale: Train and bus routes are ubiquitous in the City. The tool would be improved by assigning weight to intersections where four or more bus and/or train routes come together, or where major transportation hubs such as the Port Authority, Jamaica Center, Futon Terminal, and other such facilities are located. Distance to visually impaired facility: Consider: within 300 feet: 5 650 3 1300 2 Rationale: While nearness to a blindness facility might merit some added consideration, most New York citizens who are blind have a need to travel throughout the City. Traveling near a blindness facility should be weighted less important in our dense urban environ. Distance to major attraction Replace scoring with: Consider: within 300 feet: 4 650 3 1300 1 Rationale: Major attractions are found throughout New York in all the boroughs. We propose that nearness to an attraction should be weighed with a moderate score. Distance to alternate APS: Replace all items with Greater than 300 feet: 3 Rationale: most of the 15,000 intersections under consideration will not be near an existing alternate APS. We think that the factor should be weighed moderately. Requests for APS Consider replacing all scoring with: None: 0 One 2 Two to six 3 More than six 4 Rationale: In a densely populated urban location, multiple requests for an APS is better weighted by providing a slight advantage over a single request for an APS. In less populated areas we would not want individual requests to be at a sever disadvantage. Therefore we suggest the above scoring.