Fast Tracking as Standard Practice

In two short years, FHWA and MSHTO's Technology Implementation Group have sponsored 14 ACTT workshops, with more in the planning stage. Each attracts national transportation experts in specific skill sets who team up with colleagues from the host States to spotlight ways to shorten construction time, curb work zone congestion, and better serve motorists through improved quality. The workshops literally accelerate technology transfer by bringing innovative ideas to the table in concentrated two-day sessions. ACTT has cemented a track record of success in its workshops to date, according to participant feedback and results. Most agencies have found ways to slice construction time by 30 percent or more. Recurring recommendations have emerged: solutions with application to other highway projects across the States. The new approach to highway project development and construction is taking root as a standard practice. This second year report captures recommendations that have echoed through multiple workshops and distills the "best of" ACTT. It offers: recommended solutions by skill set and by project with a spotlight on those resonating through multiple State projects; benefits for participating State agencies; a look inside a workshop; the status of ACTT projects; phone numbers and e-mail addresses for experts; and an at-a-glance ACTT calendar of States and dates

Virginia Puts Award-Winning Plan Into Action to Improve Pedestrian Safety

The dispersed nature of pedestrian crashes often means that pedestrian safety countermeasures are installed in response to pedestrian crashes, rather than regularly installed in locations with factors that contribute to high pedestrian crash risk. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) combined hot spot and systemic analysis to proactively identify locations with high risk and known crash problems for their Pedestrian Safety Action Plan (PSAP). In 2020, VDOT updated the PSAP with more recent crash and risk factor datum generating new priority corridors and crash clusters

Research Guides Countermeasure Selection in Boulder

The City of Boulder merged research and user-friendly tools to create guidelines that provide recommendations for pedestrian countermeasures at controlled and uncontrolled crossing locations

North Carolina Goes With the Flow(chart) to Identify Countermeasures

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) guidance uses roadway characteristics and pedestrian data to uniformly recommend pedestrian countermeasures at signalized and unsignalized crossing locations. NCDOT adopted the "North Carolina Pedestrian Crossing Guidance" in 2015 to guide crash countermeasures across the State's 14 divisions

The Federal Highway Administration Civil Rights Awards 2004

Since the first civil rights awards presentation in 1992, FHWA has recognized the exemplary achievements of our Agency and State Departments of Transportation employees; other Federal and State agencies; public and private organizations; consultants and contractors and educational institutions. The FHWA gives awards in six categories to individuals and organizations that demonstrate a high level of commitment and effectiveness in administering and implementing civil rights programs and assisting the Agency in achieving its civil rights goals and objectives

Need for Speed?

Vehicle speed is an important factor of roadway safety. Students will explore how speed is related to the design of a street and learn that travel speed is a decision made by drivers. Students will discover how a driver\u2019s ability to stop is related to human biology and principles of physics and how this translates into the distance needed for a driver to see a pedestrian and stop. Students will learn about these concepts by measuring their own reaction time then calculating laying out stopping distances given different conditions

Challenges and Opportunities for an ITS/Intermodal Freight Program

This brief describes a report on how operational tests could link public and private information and management systems, enabling terminal operators, freight carriers, and state and metropolitantraffic operations managers to share information to optimize flows and better utilizeequipment and facilities

Implementation Report of the USDOT Grade Crossing Safety Task Force

On March 1, 1996, the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) Grade Crossing Safety Task Force delivered a report entitled Accidents That Shouldn't Happen to Transportation Secretary Federico Pena. Secretary Pena had directed that the Task Force be convened to address factors that might have contributed to a fatal collision involving a commuter train and a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, in October 1995. In its report, the Task Force addressed safety problems that were not specifically covered in the Department's 1994 Rail-Highway Crossing Safety Action Plan: Interconnected Signals; Vehicle Storage Space; High-Profile Crossings; Light-Rail Transit Crossings; and Special Vehicle Operations. The report made 24 recommendations to remedy physical and procedural deficiencies in grade crossing construction, operation, maintenance, funding, enforcement, coordination, information, standards, and education. The principal finding of the Task Force report was that "improved highway-rail grade crossing safety depends upon better cooperation, communication, and education among responsible parties if accidents and fatalities are to be reduced significantly." With this in mind, the report proposed a status update: "The Task Force will reconvene one year after issuance of this report to evaluate progress in implementation of its recommendations." The Task Force fulfilled this recommendation on March 1, 1997, by delivering an interim report on the Department's progress to the Associate Deputy Secretary and Director of the Office of Intermodalism, Michael P. Huerta. The contents of this interim report have been incorporated as the first chapter of this document to give the reader a comprehensive overview of Departmental actions in implementing Task Force recommendations. The Task Force report proposed that "The FHWA will meet with the FRA to develop the process for implementing the FHWA long-term recommendation to convene a technical working group to evaluate current standards and guidelines for a variety of grade crossing technical issues. Selection of working group members and development of an implementation schedule should be accomplished by June 1, 1996, with the group's product targeted for completion by June 1, 1997 ." Among the noteworthy accomplishments of the USDOT Task Force are the convening of a Technical Working Group (TWG) that has made 35 recommendations for standards, guidelines and other grade crossing safety issues; the identification of focal points to coordinate railroad safety issues in each State; the initiation of regional State/railroad conferences; and the creation of an advance warning sign for motorists approaching high-profile crossings. All of the Task Force activities and accomplishments including the above are detailed in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 focuses on the accomplishments of the TWG. Among the noteworthy accomplishments of the TWG are development of uniform terms for railroad and traffic engineers; development of an interconnected warning placard for controller cabinets; and recommendations in the areas of interconnected signals, vehicle storage, joint inspections, and high-profile crossings. This report to Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater summarizes the technical working group's findings on improved standards and guidelines for railroad-highway grade crossing safety. In making this report, the Task Force reaffirms the Secretary's commitment to make transportation safety the Department's highest priority. The Department intends to distribute this report to all who participated in the TWG. By distributing this report, the Department urges those agencies, organizations, and other professional societies that participated in its compilation to take steps to formally endorse this report and implement its recommendations. The Department further recommends that the report's terminology for railroad-highway grade crossings be adopted and used as soon as possible in correspondence, training initiatives, and in new or revised railroad-highway grade crossing publications

Pedestrian Facility Inventory Prepares for Future Planning in Lexington

The Lexington Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) created a pedestrian facility database to establish baseline conditions, identify deficiencies, and inform long range plans. From 2003 through 2007, the MPO successfully mapped and recorded pedestrian facilities over 85 square miles of Fayette County's urbanized areas

Marketing Campaign and PHBs Improve Safety for Pedestrians in Tampa

The Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization identified East Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, Florida as a high crash and high use corridor for pedestrians. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 7 installed Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons (PHBs) along the corridor to control traffic at midblock crossings and unsignalized intersections. FDOT observed reduced pedestrian crashes within a year of the installation