Pavement Art Makes Roadways Safer. So why did FDOT ban it?

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Research has shown that pavement art has "a strong positive correlation with improved safety benefits across aggregated and most individual study sites." Asphalt Art Safety Study, Bloomberg Philanthropies, April 2022. In the study available below, researchers compared before-and-after data of crash rates at 17 pavement art locations and did video analysis of street user behaviors. Seven of the sites are in Florida. The study concluded that “[r]oad user behavior clearly improved across the observed study sites in the after analysis periods.” Id. On average, areas with pavement art saw a 17.3% reduction in crashes.

The same study examined a pavement art installation in St Pete and found that the installation reduced crashes from 4.2 per year to 4 per year, a 4% reduction.

In the memo below, FDOT Assistant Secretary Will Watts, P.E., prohibits local officials from installing pavement art and threatens to withhold roadway funds from cities that fail to comply. Ironically, Mr. Watts, cites roadway safety as the reason for the policy. Despite his professional obligation to uphold public safety, Mr. Watts is making our roadways more dangerous.