San Diego’s efforts to boost pedestrian safety will take a big step this summer when nearly 300 intersections across the city get upgrades that aim to give walkers a leg up on cars.

The $1.5 million project, which will take more than two years to complete, will upgrade 281 of the more than 1,500 intersections in the city that have stoplights.

Pedestrian countdown timers, which give both walkers and motorists more information about when to expect pedestrians to be in crosswalks, will be installed at 215 intersections.

In contrast to traditional crosswalk lights, where an orange hand just flashes repeatedly, a countdown timer flashes descending numbers at pedestrians and motorists to let them know how soon the permission to walk will end.


Another 66 intersections that have been deemed especially dangerous will get those timers, plus three additional innovations: lead pedestrian intervals, blank-out signs and continental crosswalks.

Lead pedestrian intervals give walkers a roughly five-second head start over cars when entering an intersection on a green light/walk sign, increasing pedestrian visibility and boosting safety during a crucial period when many crashes happen.

Blank-out signs aggressively alert drivers that they can’t turn right into a pedestrian crosswalk even when the light is green.

Continental crosswalks use high-visibility roadway markings like thick vertical stripes, which studies show make drivers more likely to yield to pedestrians than traditional crosswalks featuring two parallel white lines.


“Using a data-driven approach, our traffic engineering team has been able to identify locations that can quickly benefit from these low-cost safety improvements,” said Julio Fuentes, a city traffic engineer. “Because we know that a high concentration of fatal and severe crashes happen at or near intersections, these upgrades will create better conditions for people walking, bicycling and driving.”

The upgrades, which are being funded partly by a $1.2 million Caltrans grant, are a component of the city’s Vision Zero campaign, a nationwide effort to end traffic-related deaths and injuries by 2025.

In recent years, the city has developed a pedestrian master plan, upgraded many crosswalks across San Diego, added sidewalks in some older neighborhoods and made other safety upgrades.

Statistics from the city indicate the campaign is having an impact. Traffic-related deaths and serious injuries dropped from 294 in 2018 to 213 in 2019, while the number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured dropped from 127 to 84.


The upgrades also are expected to help the city meet the goals of its legally binding climate action plan, which requires sharp increases in the number of people commuting by bicycle and by foot.

If local intersections become safer, city officials say, that will encourage more people to explore alternatives to cars — without fearing for their lives.

The countdown timers will definitely make a difference, said Maya Rosas, policy director for the pedestrian advocacy nonprofit Circulate San Diego.

“Countdown signals are one of the proven, efficient ways to make pedestrians safer,” she said. “They allow both the driver and the pedestrian to know when they should be in the crosswalk, and they let drivers know when to expect pedestrians in the crosswalk.”


Rosas said the city’s goal should be to have them at every intersection but added that 281 intersections is an impressive chunk.

“They should be standard, so it’s great to see a big number of them coming into place,” she said.

Rosas said her group is much more enthusiastic about the lead pedestrian intervals combined with blank-out signs.

“Pedestrians are the only people allowed to legally cross an intersection when these are on,” she said. “Those extra seconds allow pedestrians to get far enough into the intersection that they will be much more visible to a driver than if they are just stepping into an intersection.”


City officials say they began installing lead pedestrian intervals in the mid-1990s, but they couldn’t provide the total number already in place.

Thirty of the 66 intersections that will have all four of the innovations already have some form of a lead pedestrian interval, city spokeswoman Nicole Darling said.

The city also couldn’t provide the total number of pedestrian countdown timers, but Darling said the city began installing them more than five years ago.

The locations for the 215 countdown timers are skewed significantly by neighborhood, with the city’s three poorest council districts — Districts 4, 8 and 9 — receiving only 19.


Meanwhile, central urban District 3 will get 77, north coastal District 1 will get 35 and the city’s beach communities in District 2 will get 30.

In addition, half of the 66 intersections getting all four innovations are in District 3, which includes downtown, Little Italy, Hillcrest and North Park.

“Crashes involving pedestrians and the potential for crashes involving pedestrians were the main factors in determining this list,” said Darling, noting that the criteria were part of the Caltrans grant.

Another factor, she said, was downtown and nearby neighborhoods having a larger number of older traffic signals that do not already have countdown timers.


The countdown timers won’t include a voice calling out the number as they count down. Those types of timers aim to help blind pedestrians, but safety advocates say they help everyone by directing attention to the crosswalk timer.

The upgrades are not slated to include any grading, excavation or ground disturbances. Work is expected to be complete in October 2022.