Improving traffic safety with pedestrian upgrades, safer crosswalks, and calming measures for all road users

Bar Harbor Safe Streets For All - Safety Action Plan

Bar Harbor, a small Maine town with about 5,000 residents and home to Acadia National Park, sees over 4 million visitors annually. This combination of locals and tourists results in a crash fatality rate 150 percent higher than the statewide average, highlighting the need for a Safe Streets for All (SS4A) approach.

The Town of Bar Harbor is committed to creating a community where residents, employees, and visitors—whether walking, biking, driving, or taking the bus—can navigate the streets safely. To achieve this, the Town engaged our specialists to help them develop a Safety Action Plan, funded by a SS4A Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The plan will identify street safety risks and create strategies to mitigate them, paving the way for future roadway improvements.

The Safety Action Plan will include comprehensive data analysis to pinpoint traffic safety risks and crash patterns, allowing the Town to focus on high-priority areas. The plan will feature a near-miss analysis at critical intersections, using computer vision to review intersection videos and identify dangerous movements and signal phases.

Community engagement is central to the process, with three rounds of outreach planned to hear from as many road users as possible. We will engage residents, visitors, and seasonal workers through surveys, meetings, and interactive web maps where people can mark unsafe locations.

The final plan will provide the Town with strategies based on national best practices and seasonal visitation patterns. Concept designs for key locations will set the stage for successful implementation of the proposed improvements.