Prescott is trying to make a busy intersection safer with a new design called the pedestrian scramble.
The pedestrian scramble is designed to help improve a busy downtown intersection. It allows pedestrians to cross diagonally all at once instead of waiting their turn in traditional crosswalks.
Cty traffic engineer Ian Mattingly talks about the benefit of this design. “The goal of it is to surprisingly, fix a problem we have with pedestrian traffic blocking some of our vehicular turning movements, which is causing some congestion on Montezuma which is Whiskey Row," Mattingly said.
The scramble is being tried at the intersection of Gurley and Montezuma streets.
Mattingly thinks this will be successful with the help of citizens, saying “there’s a learning curve for the drivers and the pedestrians. It is a concern that people follow the rules both in their car and on foot. We’re really looking for the drivers to adhere to the no right on red rules and then for pedestrians we want them to obey the pedestrian indications on the signal.”
The new intersection design went into use Tuesday and will be tested for another week.
