Street Smart is an annual public education, awareness and behavioral change campaign in the Washington, DC, suburban Maryland and northern Virginia area. Since its beginning in 2002, the campaign has used radio, newspaper, and transit advertising, public awareness efforts, and added law enforcement to respond to the challenges of pedestrian and bicyclist safety.

The Street Smart program emphasizes education of motorists and pedestrians through mass media. It is meant to complement, not replace, the efforts of state and local governments and agencies to build safer streets and sidewalks, enforce laws, and train better drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

The program is coordinated by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB), and is supported by federal funds made available through state governments, and funding from some TPB member jurisdictions.

The Fall 2011 Street Smart campaign is scheduled to run from November 6 – December 3, 2011. The kick-off press event will take place on November 14, 2011 at 2:00pm at the corner of Piney Branch Road and Garland Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Enforcement

Supporting the mass media and public awareness campaign is a region-wide enforcement initiative. The DC Metropolitan Police Department and the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board have stepped up efforts to share information on best practices in pedestrian enforcement with line officers. A standardized enforcement reporting form has improved our knowledge of the number and types of citations being issued.

Street Smart public awareness efforts are conducted in conjunction with increased law enforcement “waves,” in which police put an added emphasis on enforcing their presence and the existing laws regarding roadway safety. This multi-pronged strategy that has been shown to compound public safety campaign results and positively affect behavior.

During the Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 campaigns, 4,220 citations and 3,785 warnings were issued to motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. This information was reported from participating agencies in the District of Columbia, Arlington County, Montgomery County, Prince William County, City of Rockville, and City of Alexandria.

Law enforcement efforts are voluntary; there is no additional or supplemental funding in the program for police overtime.

A seminar on best practices in pedestrian and bicycle enforcement was held at COG on October 18, 2011. Presentations can be found under the Resources section of this site.

Evaluation

Street Smart has conducted pre- and post-campaign surveys on all campaigns since 2002. This research is used to measure issue awareness and attitudes among drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. It also surveys awareness of the Street Smart campaign and its messages. Measurements were taken pre- and post-campaign in order to gauge the effectiveness of the spring 2011 campaign.

For the evaluation, surveys were used of drivers, pedestrians and cyclists in a broad geographic area around the metro region. Research concentrated on the particular target of 18- to 34-year old males, as this group is particularly high risk in their driving and pedestrian behaviors.

A summary of survey results shows:

1. There was great stability and sustained awareness of messaging between the pre- and post-campaign surveys. This is indicative of a mature program.
2. Even though review of the total responses shows stability, significant changes were found among responses from males 18-34 across the majority of the questions. Within this group, awareness of dangerous behaviors was reported more often and awareness of enforcement efforts was higher. This is most likely due to increased awareness after being exposed to the media campaign
3. The two new message components introduced in the spring 2011 campaign (the Giant Pedestrian Safety Problem and the image of the car crashing into the giant shoe) demonstrated significant increases in awareness in the post-campaign survey.

Goals

The goals of the campaign are to change motorist and pedestrian behavior, and reduce pedestrian and bicyclist deaths and injuries, by:

• Educating drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists about safe usage of roadways.
• Increasing enforcement of pedestrian and bicycle traffic safety laws – and make drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists aware of enforcement.
• Building on awareness of pedestrian/bicycle traffic safety issues that have been established in prior campaigns in order to change behaviors.
• Developing a program that can be easily replicated by other localities that want to decrease pedestrian and bicycle injuries and fatalities.

Members

Funding Organizations:

• City of Alexandria, Office of Transit
• Arlington County, Department of Environmental Services
• City of Bowie, Maryland
• City of College Park, Maryland
• District of Columbia, District Department of Transportation
• Loudoun County, Virginia
• Montgomery County, Maryland
• Maryland State Highway Administration, Highway Safety Office
• Virginia Highway Safety Office
• Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board gratefully acknowledges technical support and comments of staff from the following organizations: Arlington County, Department of Environmental Services; City of Alexandria, Office of Transit; Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Transportation; District of Columbia, District Department of Transportation; Maryland Department of Transportation; Maryland State Highway Administration, Highway Safety Office; Montgomery County, Maryland; United States Department of the Interior; Virginia Highway Safety Office; The Washington Area Bicyclist Association; and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.