Nichole Morris, director of the HumanFIRST Laboratory and a CTS Scholar, received the Innovative Transportation Solutions Award at the WTS Minnesota annual scholarships and recognitions luncheon in April.
The award recognizes a transportation initiative, project, or policy from initiation to completion, led by a woman, with support from numerous other women. Morris was honored for her work as the principal investigator of a research project that evaluated the impacts of enforcement, education, and engineering measures on driver behavior at pedestrian crossings (for more about the project, see the December 2018 Catalyst). The main goal of the study was to measure and enhance driver compliance to the crosswalk law in Saint Paul.
According to the WTS Minnesota website, Morris helped develop an education and awareness campaign and “relentlessly contacted media to get the word out.” She also worked through agency concerns to install weekly updateable signs that communicate the yielding percentage of motor vehicles to pedestrians along selected Saint Paul roadways. During the project, the overall yielding rates improved at the recorded sites from an average of under 30 percent to 70 percent.