- Innovation Station: 2021 CT Creative Solutions Award Winner
- Signal Spotlight: New Haven's Edgewood Cycle Track
- Safety Matters: Speed Management Tools and Tips
- Town Crier: Vincent Stetson New South Windsor Director of Public Works
- Engineers Call for Zero Traffic Deaths - An Interview with Norman Garrick
- NEW Resource: Focus on Reducing Rural Roadway Departures (FoRRRwD) Countermeasure Poster
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FHWA's Zero Deaths - Saving Lives through a Safety Culture and a Safe System Resources
- Intersection Safety Outreach and Education Products Available
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2021 CT Creative Solutions Award Winner |
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CT Creative Solutions Award: This year’s award goes to…
Glenn Cusano, Town of Canton - Mosquito Larvacider
Glenn first invented the larvacider when he was working as a sanitarian for the Town of Windsor. He and the rest of the crew would work for days on end, distributing insecticides among the catch basins around town in the hopes of controlling the mosquito population. This was a very labor-intensive and disagreeable process that required two staff. One person would drive and the other would scoop the material from a pail and dump it out the window into the catch basin.
Glenn’s invention allowed them to make this a one-person task and reduced employee exposure to the insecticide. With the larvacider, a single staff member can drive along the road and use a handle inside the vehicle to release the material from the device that hangs outside the passenger window. The material is kept outside the vehicle and has a cover over the hopper so insecticide particles are trapped within, drastically minimizing staff exposure. The overall cost for the device was under $100. It is easy to operate, safe to use and very efficient. It worked so well that Glenn sought and received a patent for the device. However, he is very willing to share the design and material list with other municipal agencies and can be contacted directly for more detailed information.
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The Connecticut Creative Solutions Award Program was developed by the Connecticut Training and Technical Assistance Center in 2006 to recognize the initiative and innovative thinking of public agency transportation staff in the development of tools, equipment modifications, and processes that increase safety, reduce cost, improve efficiency, and improve the quality of transportation. Each year our winners are added to our “Connecticut Creative Solutions” guide. We hope sharing these innovations will help you identify solutions to challenges you are facing in your agency. To browse through our guide, click on the link: CT Creative Solutions Award Guide.
Do you have a creative solution you would like to share? Fill out the following submission form and submit for next year’s program - we look forward to sharing your innovation with other agencies.
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Signal Spotlight: New Haven's Edgewood Cycle Track |
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In a city where 20% of residents commute via walking or biking, safe routes to schools and places of work are essential. Four kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools are situated along the Edgewood Avenue corridor, which connects the Westville neighborhoods to the job centers in the Elm City’s central business district. Edgewood Avenue was designed to be a local road but has become a main thoroughfare consisting of two-way boulevard sections and one-way sections between the Westville neighborhood and the city center. Nine signalized intersections along the corridor lack pedestrian accommodation, and there are no existing accommodations for bicyclists.
The City of New Haven initiated a project to construct a 2.5-mile cycle track along the Edgewood Avenue Corridor that is the first protected cycle track of its kind in Connecticut. The City applied for and received $1.2 Million in Community Connectivity Grant funds from the CTDOT to install the two-way, parking-protected cycle track. The cycle track will begin at Forest Road in Westville and continue to Park Street in downtown New Haven and is designed to provide safe access for all users along the route, including pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers. Construction is underway and is expected to be completed in 2021.
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The cycle track is protected from vehicular traffic with paint and reflective bollards and uses a parking lane as a buffer to allow for safer routes to local schools, employment centers and Edgewood Park. The additional paint and bollards are expected to calm traffic along the corridor, improving safety and reducing emissions by reducing vehicular speeds.
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If you have traffic signal systems questions, please contact:
Theresa Schwartz, P.E., P.T.O.E. - Traffic Signal Circuit Rider
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Speed Management Tools and Tips |
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Speeding is one of the most common concerns faced by local agencies. It seems that people are always in a hurry, possibly distracted and not paying attention to posted speed limits. Regardless of whether it’s in a rural neighborhood or an urban downtown, speeding has become the “norm.” Unfortunately speeding can be deadly. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) cites speeding as a factor in 26 percent of all fatalities.
So how do we solve this issue? Many people think enforcement is the only solution. Enforcement can certainly help, but most police departments have limited resources and can’t have an officer on every street all the time. However, there are several tools and tips available to slow people down and make our roads safer for everyone.
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Although it would be great if we could control every driver’s behavior behind the wheel, we just can’t. What we can do is affect their behavior by providing them environmental guidance on how they should be driving. This could be in the form of additional signage on a roadway, the use of speed feedback signs as a reinforcement of the speed limit or in restriping a road so speeding feels less comfortable. Connecticut has also recently passed legislation to address speeds in pedestrian zones and allow municipalities to set local speed limits. For more information on that legislation, register to attend the T2 Center’s September Coffee and Conversation here.
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If you have any questions about local road safety concerns, you can contact:
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Vincent Stetson New South Windsor Director of Public Works |
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The Town of South Windsor is pleased to announce that Vincent Stetson, Superintendent of Streets, will be assuming the additional responsibilities of Director of Public Works. His creativity, organization and drive have proven over the last year that he is a great fit for the position.
Vincent grew up in South Windsor playing in Rye Street Park under the care of his Nana, who resided on Scantic Meadow Drive. In the five years prior working as Superintendent, Vincent has found and implemented a variety of processes and refined most of our programs to be more in line with his prior experience in the private sector, always looking to find more value in his transactions. While in the private sector Vincent has worked in a leadership capacity on many notable projects like the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in New Haven, (otherwise known as the Q bridge) and the National Grid Transmission Line upgrade in the State of Rhode Island. His specialties include deep foundation installation and design along with heavy highway civil bridge building experience. If you have ever driven in the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts or Rhode Island, chances are you have driven over one of Vincent’s projects.
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Please join us in congratulating Vincent on this new role as Director of Public Works in South Windsor! |
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Engineers Call for Zero Traffic Deaths - An Interview with Norman Garrick |
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Norman Garrick is a professor of Transportation and Urban Planning at the University of Connecticut. He holds a Ph.D in transportation engineering from Purdue University. |
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May 17 - 23, 2021 was the United Nations Global Road Safety Week. And the focus this year is on managing speed for safety. Speed is such a critical factor in preventing traffic fatalities and injuries. As an engineer, what are the strategies you think work best to slow people down to safe, appropriate speeds?
Designing for lower speed is absolutely the top priority for reducing road deaths. There are many tools available in the toolbox that engineers can use to manage speed for safety, but the most basic includes narrower carriageways, smaller turning radii and removing center-line markings on most streets in cities. These are simple steps, but they are hard to implement because the design standards used by most cities and states, and that are promoted by the federal government, prioritize efficient vehicle movement above all else. The belief is that efficient vehicle movement is essential for prosperous communities. But now we are seeing just how wrong this approach is. Places, both here and abroad, that put the wellbeing of people first are generally the places that are the safest, as well as having the best quality of life. These places have shown that facilitating rapid vehicles movement requires steps (such as bigger roads and spread out development patterns) that actually do more harm than good. We have consistently seen that retrofitting places that prioritize the comfort, well-being and movement of people over the movement of vehicles results in safer and better places. This switch to a people-centric approach to transportation requires that we revamp the methods and policies that are currently used to design and plan streets in most places in the U.S.
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NEW Resource: Focus on Reducing Rural Roadway Departures (FoRRRwD) Countermeasure Poster |
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The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released a new FoRRRwD Countermeasure Poster.
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Why Focus on Reducing Rural Roadway Departures (FoRRRwD)?
Roadway departures (aka lane departures) on the rural road network account for one-third of traffic fatalities. Systemic application of proven roadway departure countermeasures, such as rumble strips, friction treatments, and clear zones, helps keep vehicles in their travel lanes, reduce the potential for crashes, and reduce the severity of those crashes that do occur.
This initiative encourages agencies to address lane departures on all public roads.
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FHWA's Zero Deaths - Saving Lives through a Safety Culture and a Safe System Resources
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The zero deaths vision acknowledges that even one death on our transportation system is unacceptable and focuses on safe mobility for all road users. This idea was first adopted in Sweden in 1997 as "Vision Zero" and since then has spread around the world.
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Safety culture can be defined as the shared values, actions, and behaviors that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demands.
Consensus among safety experts is that a safety culture exists in different forms in the transportation industry. Two forms that resonate the most with transportation organizations are an organizational safety culture and a public safety culture.
For more about this initiative and resources, click here.
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Intersection Safety Outreach and Education Products Available |
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FHWA's Intersection Safety Program is pleased to share outreach and education products to assist State, local, and Tribal partners in advancing intersection safety efforts in their communities.
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Three videos have been produced to help advance efforts to implement intersection solutions that also reflect the Safe System approach. For intersections, this approach involves separating users in space, separating users in time, modifying conflict angles, and reducing speed through conflict areas—all to manage the kinetic energy involved in a potential collision. Each video is 3–5 minutes, and is intended to help State, local, and Tribal agencies explain these intersections to their communities.
To learn more about these and other resources and how they could improve your agency’s safety efforts, please contact Jeff Shaw, FHWA Office of Safety.
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Along with our Facebook page, the T2 Center now has an Instagram page! Click on the icons below to like the T2 Center on Facebook and follow the T2 Center on Instagram! |
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If you have any ideas or suggestions for future Connecticut Crossroads topics, please feel free to email the designer Regina Hackett at [email protected]
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