SafeAcross is a pedestrian safety campaign that aims to initiate cultural change towards being pedestrian-friendly and measurably increasing driver compliance at crosswalks.
SafeAcross has been modeled after the successful SGF Yields campaign, which was launched in 2017. The award-winning pedestrian safety campaign from Springfield, Missouri gained national attention and in 2021 the Missouri Department of Transportation provided funding to Springfield to develop a sharable version of SGF Yields, SafeAcross. The SafeAcross toolkit is now available to other communities free of charge.
www.safeacross.com
The campaign is light-hearted and engaging in nature and incorporates Education, Engineering, Enforcement, Encouragement, Equity and Evaluation. The different elements are tied together by “Mr. Walker”, a fluorescent-yellow-green pedestrian statue installation. He playfully conveys the safety messages and trains drivers to recognize pedestrian crossing signs, look for pedestrians, and yield.
The program includes education for drivers, pedestrians, and school children and it promotes best practices for crosswalk installations. It includes high-visibility crosswalk enforcement, ongoing public engagement and internal policy reviews. Most importantly, the program’s success comes from continuous crosswalk compliance studies, in which the study results are publicly promoted to achieve social norming (normalizing Yield behavior). FHWA has designated SGF Yields as a noteworthy practice as its elements fit well into the Safe System Approach.