Pedestrian Level of Traffic Stress (PLTS) Pilot Implementation for Cook County, IL

Summary

Pedestrian accessibility is a critical element of urban transport and land use development, essential for creating healthy, sustainable transportation systems and advancing equity of access to infrastructure, services, jobs, and education. Despite its importance, walking remains underutilized as a transportation mode in the United States. While walking can be an accessible and practical transport option for many people, street and traffic conditions often expose pedestrians to unacceptable risks, making walking undesirable, uncomfortable, or unsafe for large numbers of potential users. This pilot project implements the Pedestrian Level of Traffic Stress (PLTS) framework to characterize pedestrian networks with OpenStreetMap data infrastructure for assessing walking comfort and safety. We established a generalizable and standardized framework for evaluating PLTS and integrating PLTS classifications into network-based access evaluation tools. This creates a replicable methodology that can be adapted to other jurisdictions for identifying pedestrian barriers and evaluating safe, comfortable pedestrian access across communities. This pilot study also revealed several key considerations and opportunities for refinement regarding both methodological efficiency and data quality.