Mike on Traffic

School Safety Plan Part 5: Slowing Down Traffic

This is an installment of an 8 part series on School Safety Plans.  The next portion will be posted next Monday. 

The speed of a vehicle in a crash greatly determines the severity of injuries. Slowing down vehicles within the school grounds and on the streets adjacent to the school is a significant way to improve safety. Coordinating your efforts to slow traffic on the adjacent streets with the city’s police and engineering departments is important to the success of your plan. Traffic signs have little impact unless the police routinely enforce them. Police departments are usually willing to increase their speed enforcement within school zones if you remind them of the importance of low speeds.  Speed bumps and blocking off through routes within the parking lot may be needed to slow down traffic. Physical devices like roundabouts are the best way to slow down vehicles on the adjacent streets. Engineering department cooperation will be needed if this type of change is warranted. Physical devices in the parking lot and on the adjacent streets need to be well thought out because they can pose significant problems for handicapped persons and may also cause unnecessary delays if used inappropriately.

School Safety Plan Part 4: Increasing Student Visibility

This is an installment of an 8 part series on School Safety Plans.  The next portion will be posted next Monday.

Trees, shrubs, fences, buses, and parked vehicles should be limited in crossing areas so kids can be seen by vehicles in time for the vehicles to stop for them. Obstructions should be removed within the school grounds and along the school routes to school. This is most important at elementary schools because the children are smaller. A three foot high shrub would be a problem at an elementary school where it wouldn’t be a problem at a high school. 

When possible, students should cross traffic in groups so they will be more visible. If there are concentrations of students who walk or bicycle along the same route, a “walking school bus” or “bicycle train” system can be developed. The students go to their corner at a certain time and get “picked-up” by the group in the same fashion a school bus operates. These work best if an adult volunteer goes with the group, starting at the first “stop.” 

If adult crossing guards or student patrols are used, they should have whistles to catch the attention of motorists and/or students. They are also required to wear high visibility apparel (per the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices). This apparel (safety vests) should comply with ANSI 107-1999. AAA is a great resource for developing your school patrol procedures. 

Big Box Evaluator

The Orton Family Foundation of Vermont has created an interactive online tool to help inform citizens about the impacts of Big Box stores (i.e. Home Depot, Wal Mart, Target,...) called Big Box Evaluator.  The evaluator is supposed to be a resource for residents who are concerned about a proposed Big Box in their town, although it points out positive aspects of Big Boxes as well.  Traffic is just one of the many components of the evaluator.  Overall, it appears to be very sensitive to the inputs of the user.  I am guessing most residents who find the evaluator will give it negative inputs, which will spit out negative outputs.  I recommend developers of big boxes do an honest evaluation with the tool so you can refute any negative evaluations that come up at public meetings.

School Safety Plan Part 3: Minimizing the Impacts of School Traffic

This is an installment of an 8 part series on School Safety Plans.  The next portion will be posted next Monday.

This area of your plan requires working with the city engineering department and possibly hiring a consultant traffic engineer. The plan will analyze the operations of your driveways onto the public street system and the nearby public street intersections. You will need to work with your city’s engineering department if your plan is looking at changing any physical features such as sidewalks, signs, or traffic signals. Possible outcomes of this analysis may be:

• Installing signs per Chapter 7 of the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices which covers traffic control specific to school areas.Adding turn lanes.
• Changing stop sign configurations.
• Changing pavement markings.
• Banning certain turning maneuvers (to eliminate a “shortcut”).
• Adding a traffic signal.
• Changing the operation of a traffic signal.
• Constructing a roundabout.
• Constructing traffic calming measures such as speed bumps.
• Adding pedestrian ramps at intersections.
• Constructing trails or sidewalks.
• Building “bumpouts” to extend the sidewalks toward each other at intersections to shorten the crossing distance.

 

Google Street Maps for the Twin Cities

Google rolled out its "street maps" function for the Twin Cities today.  Google staff drove around with cameras on their cars and have posted the video on their maps page.  Just click on the "street maps" button, find a road highlighted in blue, and click on it.  The viewing buttons are intuitive.  Here is a screen shot that shows Highway 100 from the Minnetonka Blvd interchange by my office.

 

When I was in Maple Grove we had a private company drive the streets and provide us with a similar video log.  They were a start up company located in Maple Grove, so I think we got a pretty good deal.  The theory was that we could be more responsive if we could pull up views of a street while we were talking on the phone with a resident.  Google is going to save me a lot of time, but I will still get out of my office to verify things in the field.  For instance, here is a slightly outdated view of the I-35W bridge.  Google may want to take this one off of their map.  As my mentor Shelly Johnson beat into me when I was a newly minted traffic engineer - get out of the office and drive around to see how the real world works.

School Safety Plan Part 2: Minimizing Vehicle/Student Interaction

This is an installment of an 8 part series on School Safety Plans.  The next portion will be posted next Monday.

Minimizing the amount of time students mix with vehicles is the low hanging fruit of the traffic safety plan. These measures typically don’t cost anything, but they are usually specific to each school. You are trying to control where students come into the school and leave the school so they don’t mix with a lot of vehicles. An example would be having parents drop off their kids at a school entrance instead of letting them out on the street. Another example is loading students into buses or vehicles in a tightly controlled manner: (1) no vehicles are allowed to move in the loading area while students are being loaded, (2) an adult is in charge who signals the vehicles or buses when all of the students are loaded, (3) the vehicles leave in a single file line and (4) the next platoon of vehicles or buses are loaded. 

 

What to do when you NEED a traffic signal.

When I sat in the chair as a traffic engineer for the City of Maple Grove I'd get the occasional call from a resident telling me we need a traffic signal at such and such intersection.  My experience is that as a resident, your best bet to get something "public works" related is to start with your city council person or city engineer.  They are the most invested in listening to you.  I work with a lot of great county and state engineers who are very responsive, but my experience has been that they dig further into requests when they officially come in from the city vs. coming from a resident.  So if you are Joe Q. Public and have a traffic concern, I would call your city engineer first.  They'll know who to guide you to if they aren't the best person to handle your call.

Now that I am a consultant, the request for a traffic signal usually comes from a property manager or developer.  The conversation usually goes like this: Hi Mike, this is Judy, I have a twenty acre parcel I am looking at developing, I have a tenant lined up (pharmacy, grocery store, big box, etc.) but they say they don't want to build on the property unless there is a signal at the main driveway on the highway, can you call up Mn/DOT and get us a traffic signal approved, and by the way - hopefully they'll see the need and just put it in for free.

I previously wrote about Mn/DOT's ICE Report process where they are required to look at roundabouts, all way stop signs, etc in addition to signals.  In addition Minnesota Statute, via the Minnesota Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (called the MMUTCD), governs the installation of signals on all public roads (as well as all other traffic devices).  An engineering study per the MMUTCD needs to be done to determine if we need a traffic signal.  The study involves analyzing the amount of traffic on the main street in combination with the side street.  This always starts with the existing traffic volumes and may be expanded to near term future traffic volumes if a big development is imminent.  My experience is that you need a big box (Target, Wal-Mart, grocery store, etc.) or a several 100,000 square foot office complex to get to the minimum thresholds  (jargon alert:  traffic signal warrants) of starting to need a traffic signal, but it is very situational.  You won't meet the minimum thresholds with just a restaurant, strip center, or pharmacy alone.

Most counties as well as Mn/DOT push back very hard about putting in traffic signals unless there is heavy traffic throughout the day.  These jurisdictions have a backlog of locations where they would like to put in traffic signals, but don't have the funds to build them (the last I heard, Hennepin County has a backlog of 100+ intersections and they build about two a year with their own funds).  On top of this, it is proven that crashes go up when a traffic signal is put in vs. just stop signs on the side street (rear end crashes go up significantly, but hopefully severe crashes go down).  So signals aren't a pure silver bullet.

So if you are a property manager or a developer, here is the process I recommend (which isn't that much different from what a resident should do):

1. Get a reputable traffic engineer to do the appropriate engineering study (as step one you can see if the city will do the study for you, but they will typically ask you to prepare the study).
2. Bring the study to the city (preferably starting with the city engineer) to get their support.
3. Have the city lobby the appropriate county/state agencies (typically signals are needed at a driveway or city street intersection that intersects a county or state highway - so you need the other agency's permission as well as the city's).
4. Lastly, if the signal is needed for YOUR property, the public agencies are going to expect you to pay for part/all of it.  Of course this is a negotiation (where the public agencies hold the trump cards).

School Safety Plan Part 1: Documenting Existing Conditions

This is an installment of an 8 part series on School Safety Plans.  The next portion will be posted next Monday.

The first step in any planning exercise should be determining your current situation.  Then you can develop alternatives for changing the existing system.  Here is a checklist for documenting your school's existing transportation system:

• How do your parking lot/lots currently function?
  • Bus circulation
  • Parent parking
  • Student parking (if high school)
  • Parent drop-off/pick-up procedure
  • Students walking in parking lot?
  • Where are students outside of adult supervision?
  • Document the number of vehicles and students involved with the above maneuvers.
• What routes do kids use when they walk or bicycle to school?
  • Are there sidewalks or trails along the whole route?
  • Is there a map of the sidewalk/trail system published for parents and students?
  • How many students come along each route?
  • Where do routes cross streets?
  • What signs, pavement markings, and signals are within the routes and school zone?
  • Do you have school crossing guards?
  • Do you have “walking school buses” or “bicycling trains”?
• Street network
  • Turn lanes
  • Speed limits
  • Traffic control in place at intersections
  • Traffic volume counts
• Do student groups leave the campus for any events?