The medians serve as a traffic calming and pedestrian safety feature. In the coming weeks, you will see rubber curbs added near crosswalks within the painted median area to create pedestrian refuge islands. These will call additional attention to the crosswalks and provide pedestrians with an area to pause and focus on crossing one direction of traffic at a time, reducing exposure to traffic.
In addition to improving pedestrian safety, the medians cause the lanes to shift, which should require more attentive driving at slower speeds. We will be gathering speed data throughout the pilot project to monitor these impacts.