The need of local road managers to have a readily accessible reference guide for identifying deficiencies and improving safety on low-volume roads has prompted the development of a field guide for unpaved rural roads. Technical resources are available to evaluate the various aspects of a low-volume road. However, the resources are in numerous publications and not in a single, easy-to-use document. The concept of the field guide is to provide a single reference to assist rural road managers in making on-site evaluations of specific roadway deficiencies. Critical safety issues and unpaved rural road responsibilities vary throughout the United States. A national focus group was used to recognize this variability. A modified Delphi survey procedure was used to facilitate focus group input and review the project. The Wyoming Technology Transfer Center, in cooperation with the FHWA Local Technical Assistance Program, was responsible for development of the guide. Reviewed are the steps and considerations taken in the development of the guide. Developmental techniques, such as input from a national focus group of transportation professionals, were used to successfully complete this project. The methodologies used to develop this guide are applicable and potentially useful for completing other transportation projects worldwide.
With limited resources and increasing exposure to tort liability, local rural road agencies face the dilemma of how to maximize improvements to their road system. For unpaved rural roads the problem is particularly acute. Many of these unpaved rural roads worldwide have geometric deficiencies that do not conform with recognized standards and guidelines. In many instances, roadway improvements are not being completed because of the inability to fund improvements to meet these standards and guidelines. Incremental improvements for unpaved rural roads is potentially an important tool for local agencies. The goal is at least to meet minimum guidelines and standards by continuing to implement an incremental program. Reported here are the results of a project that used a national U.S. focus group to provide input into the acceptability of the concept and use of incremental safety improvements on unpaved rural roads. The investigation targeted horizontal curvature as a site deficiency. The focus group was used to identify if and what incremental improvements should be considered. The results demonstrated the need for functional subclassifications of rural unpaved roads, with incremental decisions made that address the unique operational differences. Incremental improvements, when properly considered, are recommended as an acceptable method to increase safety on unpaved rural roads and to minimize liability.
Mendocino County is a large rural county in northern California with more than 1,000 centerline miles of county-maintained roads. The terrain is mountainous, with a few small inland valleys. During the 1990s, the Mendocino County Department of Transportation developed a program of road system traffic safety reviews to improve signing and markings on the arterials and collectors in the system. The effectiveness of the program was measured by comparing accident data for the reviewed roads with data for roads not included in, or influenced by, the reviews. To control for different groups of factors, two sets of control roads were selected—county-maintained roads not reviewed and state highways within the county. Over two consecutive 3-year review cycles, the number of accidents on the reviewed roads fell by 42.1%, while on the county-maintained roads not reviewed they increased by 26.5%, and on the state highways they fell by 3.3%. The total cost to conduct the reviews and implement the recommended changes was $ 79,300. The accident histories of the control roads were used to define the limits of the range of probable benefits. On the basis of average accident costs provided by the California Department of Transportation, calculated savings ranged from $ 12.58 million to $23.73 million, yielding a costs-to-benefits ratio between 1:159 and 1:299. The county is expanding the road system traffic safety review program to cover its entire maintained road system.
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