CINCINNATI — The Department of Transportation and Engineering is giving the neighborhood of Evanston a Christmas gift this year: the city's first raised crosswalk.
City crews will close Fairfax Avenue to non-local traffic starting Dec. 9 through Dec. 24, to install the crosswalk, which will raise the roadway roughly 6 inches, slightly higher than the city's more typical speed humps, the city announced Wednesday.
Evanston: Fairfax Ave will be closed to thru #CincyTraffic Dec. 9 - Dec. 24. Crews are installing the @CityOfCincy's first "raised" crosswalk to improve pedestrian safety by Evanston Academy. Local access open for residents. Detour via Wold Ave or Evanston Ave. @CincyPD @IamCPS pic.twitter.com/zMbdXpgsuq
— Roadmap Cincy (@RoadmapCincy) December 8, 2020
The hope is the raised crosswalk will increase visibility and slow drivers passing through the residential area.
The road improvement is one of more than 200 pedestrian crossings slated for upgrades through September 2021. Earlier this fall, DOTE unveiled its full list of planned pedestrian safety projects for the next year.
City Council designated its first pedestrian safety fund -- $500,000 -- in fiscal year 2018 and since has updated that total to $750,000 annually. In 2019, lawmakers adopted Vision Zero, expressing a commitment to reducing the city's traffic fatalities to zero.
Like many of the projects earmarked for funding from the pedestrian safety pool, the raised crosswalk will sit near a school and a rec center: the Academy of World Languages to the east and Evanston Recreation Center to the west.
DOTE received hundreds of requests from neighborhoods for improvements to their pedestrian infrastructure last year; those that serve vulnerable populations or with high rates of people walking typically take priority.
