Abstract
New research indicates that intersections become safer the more pedestrians use them. Traditionally, the dangerousness of an intersection has been determined by the number of pedestrian-vehicle crashes occurring there over a period of time. With the help Space Syntax, a suite of modeling tools and simulation techniques, researchers evaluated the safety of intersections using not only crash data, but also pedestrian volumes--the number of pedestrians that use an intersection over a period of time. These researchers found that as pedestrian volumes increased, a pedestrian's risk of being hit by a vehicle decreased. Research was carried out in California cities such as Oakland and also in major European cities, with consistent results.