Kay Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., PE

TTI Research Fellow
Program Manager

Education

• Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 1989
• M.S., Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1984
• B.S., Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1983

Short Biography

Kay Fitzpatrick has over 40 years of research experience in the fields of pedestrians, safety, geometric design, traffic control devices, and traffic operations. She has been the principal investigator for numerous research projects with TxDOT, NCHRP, TCRP, and FHWA. Investigating how to make roadways safer for pedestrians has been a career-long passion for Kay. She has investigated the safety and operational impacts of the pedestrian hybrid beacon, the rectangular rapid flashing beacon, and a number of other treatments for pedestrians. She had FHWA projects where she examined how intersection corner radius is related to pedestrian safety and the benefits of protected intersections for bicyclists and pedestrians. Her geometric design research includes projects on freeway designs for active traffic management (for FHWA), ramp merge areas (for TxDOT and NCHRP), higher speed design criteria (for TxDOT), alternative intersection design (for TxDOT and FHWA), and complex interchange signing (for FHWA). The NCHRP 03-91 project (for which she was the PI) developed left-turn lane warrants for unsignalized intersections. Within the safety topic, Kay has developed crash modification factors for the midblock pedestrian signals, pedestrian hybrid beacons, Super 2 highways, and freeway elements such as medians. As part of Kay’s numerous research projects, she analyzes, and reports results in technical publications and delivers technical presentations. She has also developed several guideline documents for use by practitioners, including the User Guide for Posted Speed Limit Setting Procedure and Tool (NCHRP Report 966).