Local Road Safety Peer Exchange E-Newsletter

Highlights from the Local Road Safety Peer Exchange held last September 10-11, 2015 in Baton Rouge, LA

Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Best Practices

On Traffic Safety Culture

LRSP Changes and Improvements

On Parish Safety Plans and Systemic Approach

Helpful Resources

Opportunities and Events

Road Safety Assessment: A Tool for Local Governments

Road Safety Innovations--EDC Initiatives and More

"The Safety Center is here to provide support for road safety initiatives. Also, we now administer the Local Road Safety Program in coordination with DOTD," said LCTS Director Dortha Cummins as she welcomed everyone.

Local Road Safety Program Changes

and Improvements

C hanges to the LRSP were announced by LRSP Project Manager Rick Holm, who informed the group that all eligible safety projects approved through the Local Road Safety Program may be 100% federally funded. Additionally, DOTD will now manage contracts on projects that provide funding for consulting engineering services such as design or construction, engineering and inspection (CEI) services. This should eliminate time required to get a consulting contract initiated and signed as well as reduce delays due to transmitting plans and other project information. These two changes earned a positive response from the local stakeholders. Read the memorandum of LRSP Changes.

"We are happy that you've looked closely as to how to improve the project delivery timeframe. Thank you all. This is very exciting news to us," said Tim Conner, Calcasieu Parish Police Jury's Director of Engineering. "You all funded some of our guardrails and sign projects, and we look forward to getting more projects your way," interjected Tim Weaver, Caddo Parish Commission's Assistant Director.

Jefferson's Traffic Engineering Supervisor Jody Savoie related how their LRSP experience had been quite a challenge but still hoped to develop potential projects for consideration. He suggested reaching out to little municipalities in their area which could use some funding and technical assistance.

On Parish Safety Plans and Systemic Approach

The peer exchange was pivotal in encouraging Parishes and municipalities to develop Parish Safety Plans that will help prioritize systemic-type road safety improvements-- ranging from sign enhancements to curve delineations, to innovative countermeasures like road diets (road reconfiguration), high friction surface treatments and roundabouts.

LRSP Engineer Peter Allain shared how the planning process could end up to be somewhat "Do-It-Yourself Parish Safety Plans". He will collaborate with DOTD Highway Safety Section and the local entity throughout the course of planning---from the data analysis down to the selection of countermeasures. Several parishes immediately expressed their interest in developing their plan.

DOTD Highway Safety Manager April Renard presented on the Systemic Approach to Safety which is now the talk of the nation's infrastructure safety area. "Everybody does it. By systemic, you correlate crashes with roadway characteristics to narrow down locations with high potential for safety improvements," she said. Ms. Renard is the DOTD Program Manager responsible for funds expended under the Louisiana SHSP including those for the LRSP. She is also responsible for technical oversight of project selection and implementation and works closely with the Safety Center and LTAP to coordinate DOTD and local safety efforts.

Warmest thanks to all speakers and attendees!

Local stakeholders exchange best practices, discuss innovations at road safety peer exchange

The Goal Is Destination Zero Deaths

Baton Rouge, LA - Over 65 transportation professionals from parishes and municipalities in Louisiana gathered for the Local Road Safety Peer Exchange on September 10-11, 2015 at the Transportation Training and Education Center (TTEC) in Baton Rouge to exchange ideas on road safety best practices and innovations that help save lives.

The peer exchange was made possible through grant funding from the FHWA's Accelerating Safety Activities Program (ASAP) designed to help Focus States promote safety innovations. Know more about Focused Approach to Safety.

The new Louisiana Center for Transportation Safety (LCTS) or Safety Center led the peer exchange in partnership with the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The event encouraged local and state stakeholders to engage in discussions on an exciting array of topics that included traffic safety culture, low-cost safety countermeasures, basic roadway departure solutions, use of systemic approach in identifying locations with high potential for safety improvements, and the benefits of developing Parish Safety Plans.

Peer Exchange participants were introduced to the Louisiana Center for Transportation Safety as a resource for workforce development, research, technical assistance and collaboration for the state's road safety initiatives, including the Strategic Highway Safety Plan and its mission: Destination Zero Deaths
Know more about Destination Zero Deaths

Nearly 70% of the attendees were representatives from Parishes and municipalities as well as regional planning commissions that also house the regional safety coalitions. The rest were representatives from key federal and state highway agencies as well as project consultants who provide support for the local entities. Most of the local participants were from the so-identified "Top 20 High-Crash Parishes". The Top 20 list was based on the fatality numbers for non-collision roadway departures on locally owned roads from 2010 to 2012. These parishes are Orleans, East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Lafayette, Calcasieu, Caddo, Ouachita, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Livingston, Bossier, Terrebonne, Rapides, Iberia, St. Landry, Vermilion, Ascension, Acadia, St. Martin and St. Mary.

Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Best Practices

Representatives from local public agencies presented on their local road safety project successes and lessons learned, which led to interesting discussion facilitated by City of Gonzales Engineer Jackie Baumann.

City of Central's former CAO David Barrow shared on implementing roundabouts and rumble strips, which were among the successful pilot projects funded through the LRSP. "We did a roundabout on Lovett Road which significantly reduced crashes on the curve itself by 94%. Advanced warning signs approaching a roundabout are critical," he emphasized.

Jennifer Ruley, Active Transportation Engineer from LA Public Health Institute and Advisor to the City of New Orleans, showed where high visibility crosswalks have been used in both uncontrolled and controlled intersections in New Orleans. "We hope to get better guidance on crosswalk selection and perhaps more research on Louisiana's crosswalk and beacon projects that might guide in the selection process," she expressed.

A good statewide perspective on mitigating roadway departure issues was shared by AECOM's engineer Jonathan McDowell. He provided insight on how Louisiana used a systemic approach in identifying locations where safety improvements could be deployed by phases.

Acadiana Planning Commission's Planner Ashley Moran shared her approach of mitigating roadway departure issues by zooming into locations where crashes involving fixed objects are happening. She shared that going back to basics as simple as tree trimming or placing object markers can potentially reduce crashes.

On Traffic Safety Culture

FHWA's Safety Specialist Betsey Tramonte and LTAP Director Dr. Marie Walsh brought everyone's attention to the elusive topic of safety culture. The presentation included information on safety culture that has been generated by ongoing national research efforts funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and the AAA Foundation. The AAA Foundation has conducted annual, nationally-representative surveys of the American public since 2008. Now recognized as the authoritative reference on the subject, the Foundation's survey findings are used to benchmark and track the public's attitudes and behaviors over time. After an introduction to the concept of how culture drives behaviors, the peer exchange participants were challenged to answer some of the same questions included in the AAA survey.

Using audience-response clickers, the participants responded to questions that asked how acceptable they personally felt for a driver to drive without wearing a seatbelt, run through a light that just turned red, using cellphones behind the wheel, and so on. This question-and-answer session gauged their level of perception on safe driving behaviors for themselves and others. Of all the questions, everyone gave a unanimous "completely unacceptable" answer to getting behind the wheel when they've had too much to drink. The presentation also included factors identified in sociological research on culture that help explain why it is so difficult to enact "culture" change across different levels of society and organizations.

"Change in behavior driven by safety culture improvement is possible but there isn't a 'one-size fits all' solution," Dr. Walsh remarked.

Road Safety Assessment: a tool for local governments

LRSP Manager Rudynah Capone gave a brief overview on Road Safety Assessments (RSA).

The South Central Regional Safety Coalition capitalized on the use of RSAs to get safety projects going in the Bayou and River Parishes. "By using RSA, our region produced low-cost safety projects that are aimed at saving lives," shared coalition coordinator Cassie Parker. She, along with Terrebonne's Road Superintendent David Rome, presented the benefits and lessons learned from their project development and implementation experience. "The RSA effort fostered teambuilding between our partners and we saw a room for improvements in simple, but important areas such as the way the signs are installed. It's essential to have proper placement and installation of these signs according to MUTCD standards," he said.

The RSA approach was utilized by the North Shore Regional Safety Coalition and St. Tammany which started by examining roadway departures in two specific curves. Consideration of these curves and the data parish wide, shifted St. Tammany's paradigm toward a data-driven approach to identify similar curves and to plan for improvements in a parish wide project. Parish Engineer Jay Watson said their project proposals on curve safety improvements were approved for LRSP funding in the first two quarters of this year. . "We look at all curves with potentials for safety improvements. We have field technicians who evaluate these roads and verify if projects may be feasible for curve signs and pavement markers, or other countermeasures" he specified.

LRSP Project Engineer Mike Ricca pointed out some of the common issues in sign installation such as wrong height and non-uniformity of appearance. "Oftentimes, these mistakes are not identified until the final inspection, so the signs have to be removed and reinstalled. We are looking at avoiding this from happening through training and pre-installation briefing with our technical assistance engineer," he remarked.

Road Safety Innovations -- Every Day Counts Initiatives and More

A session on road diets and high friction surface treatments encouraged the audience to explore possibilities where these Every Day Counts (EDC) innovations may be applicable. DOTD District 62 Traffic Operations Engineer Cristine Gowland shared her experience of a road diet project along LA 21 in Bogalusa. "It was impactful in that it reduced the number of crashes," she emphasized.

Road diets are defined as roadway configuration that typically involves converting an existing four-lane, undivided roadway segment to a three-lane segment consisting of two through lanes and a center two-way left-turn lane.

City of New Orleans Construction Project Manager Louis Haywood presented on their city's adoption of the Complete Streets Program and showed quite a number of examples where they have incorporated this concept in their bike-and-pedestrian-friendly projects.

LTAP Manager Steve Strength got peers excited about the latest innovation in high friction surface treatments and how they can be applied on curve locations most especially those with issues on running off the road. He explained high friction surface treatments (HFST) are site-specific applications of very high-quality, durable aggregates. "The treatments use a polymer binder that restores and maintains pavement friction so that it's safer to travel especially on wet road conditions," he specified.

"Hint, hint! We like it," exclaimed LRSP Engineer Peter Allain referring to the HFST as something eligible for funding through the Local Road Safety Program.