Communities around the United States may soon have a chance to share the successes of Springfield’s award-winning pedestrian safety program, SGF Yields.
SafeAcross, a less-Springfield-specific version of SGF Yields, would serve as a sharable toolkit for other communities to improve pedestrian safety. The Springfield City Council is set to vote Jan. 8 on whether to authorize Springfield to enter into agreements with other cities, counties and states to implement the program.
Though it remains to be seen which political subdivisions borrow ideas from Springfield’s pedestrian safety initiative, Springfield Department of Public Works Traffic Engineer Brett Foster said the recognition SGF Yields has received in recent years has piqued interest in the program. While Springfield continues to look for ways to improve pedestrian safety — amid rising crashes and fatalities — SafeAcross is a testament to the achievements of SGF Yields, which debuted in 2017.
Requirements to adopt SafeAcross
In 2022, Springfield was awarded a pair of grants totaling about $100,000 to develop SafeAcross. The all-inclusive online toolkit is intended to be “self-sufficient,” and is offered to other communities for free. However, the City of Springfield may charge for additional services beyond the scope of SafeAcross.
Despite the minimal cost of SafeAcross itself, some communities may be hindered by infrastructure costs associated with implementation, Foster said.
Lending of the program will come in the form of intellectual property and service agreements to protect Springfield’s liability and ensure the integrity of the program.
“What we don't want to do is see inconsistent things happening in other cities because the program will lose its effectiveness and not be recognizable[...]This benefits Springfield, because if [people] see this in other cities, they’re going to recognize it when they come to Springfield,” Foster said. “And so just to keep that consistency and fairness, those contracts allow us to — we'll pull that property or do different things today should they not comply with what they're supposed to.”
Those agreements, and usage of the program, also come with prerequisites and conditions to ensure SafeAcross be used alongside needed infrastructure and other safety measures.
“You can't put up some of these supplemental things — if you don't have some minimal pavement markings and stuff that you have to have for your crosswalks for some of your pedestrian safety,” Foster said.
The supplemental components of SafeAcross include the fluorescent yellow-green Mr. Walker statues and similar SGF Yields signage that can be found across Springfield.
Though the council bill initiating the program includes a contract with Cape Girardeau to adopt SafeAcross, Foster said it remains to be seen if Cape Girardeau will even be eligible to implement the program.
Foster anticipates SafeAcross to generate plenty of interest, especially as funding for similar initiatives becomes available for other communities.
“We're kind of surprised we don't have more cities signed on right now,” Foster said. “I think there's just so much change happening right now with federal funding in the traffic world and how things have happened since COVID.”
‘Room to grow' successes of SGF Yields
Since its implementation in Springfield, SGF Yields has received regional and national recognition. The program received the 2022 Exceptional Performance in Safety award from the American Public Works Association and the Show Me Zero 2022 Southwest Regional Award from the Missouri Department of Transportation. It has been named as a best practice by the Federal Highway Administration.
At the Dec. 11 City Council meeting — during which SafeAcross was presented — Councilmember Brandon Jenson commended the successes of SGF Yields, but noted four pedestrian deaths in Springfield up to that point in 2023 leave “room to grow,” especially when it comes to matching pedestrian-friendly infrastructure with SGF Yields' public education campaign.
“There’s definitely still work for us to do,” Jenson said.
Foster agreed, and furthered that sentiment in an interview with the Hauxeda, acknowledging that the number of pedestrian crashes and fatalities in Springfield is “not a good story.” Though Springfield's rate is only “slowly increasing” compared to the drastic rise in pedestrian accidents nationally, Foster emphasized the goal for SGF Yields and SafeAcross is to reduce the number of pedestrian accidents.
While it doesn’t correlate directly with crashes, a positive trend for SGF Yields is compliance rates at crosswalks. Prior to the implementation of the program, Foster said that figure hovered between 20-25%, and as low as 10% in some areas. Now, 50-55% of Springfield drivers are yielding to pedestrians.
One hurdle the city government faces to further increase the level of compliance, which Foster said has leveled off, is staffing. While education and awareness are the pillars of the campaign, enforcement has been effective in contributing toward a “significant impact” in drivers’ crosswalk compliance.
However, the City of Springfield has since lost funding for the enforcement piece of the program, which Foster said is further constrained by continued staffing shortages in the Springfield Police Department.
“We feel like the neighborhoods’, the drivers’ and pedestrians’ commitments to this in Springfield are doing well,” Foster said. “So we just have to continue to try to make those small changes and try to figure out where we can impact you know people more as we continue to look for additional safety things for these pedestrians and our motorists.”
More information on SafeAcross can be found here.
