1. CTDOT Traffic Safety Engineering
Natasha Fatu and Colin Baummer
CTDOT Traffic Safety Engineering
Introduction – Natasha and Colin from Traffic Safety Engineering
Our job is to reduce the # of fatalities and serious injuries on all Connecticut’s roads with safety infrastructure projects.

2. State of Safety
This chart shows the Fatalities throughout the U.S. (in Red) and then the Fatalities in just CT (Blue). As you can see fatalities were generally decreasing, then flattened out, but had a very large increase in 2015, and it appears that 2016 will also be an increase.
So we clearly can see that there is a major issue and that there is a lot of work to be done by all of us.

3. WHACK – A - MOLE
Most of us probably remember playing whack-a-mole at the arcade….no matter how many times you hit that gopher on the head, his buddies will just keep popping up.
For the longest time, Engineers were doing the same thing. As soon as you think you have “fixed or solved” one problem area, another two or three will pop-up on your radar. For the longest time CTDOT and many other DOT’s have only focused on trying to fix the Hot Spots, but that is not enough if we want to make a serious impact on the # of fatalities and serious injuries on our Roadways.
So now we need to step back and change our thinking.
The next three slides will look at the location of the Fatal Crashes in Connecticut, from the beginning of 2015 to half way through 2016, and they are broken into 6 month segments. Each marker represents the location of a fatal crash.

4. Fatal Crashes 1/1/15-6/30/15
114 Fatal Crashes

5. Fatal Crashes 7/1/15-12/31/15
132 Fatal Crashes

6. Fatal Crashes 1/1/16-6/30/16
117 Fatal Crashes

7. Safety Approach Spot Improvements Reactive
Old
New
Spot Improvements
Reactive
Manage or address risk one location at a time
Systemic approach
Proactive
Manage risk across the entire system
Consider safety at planning, design, construction, and maintenance
Cost effective
As you can see, the locations were constantly changing, however when you dig deeper into the crash data, you can start to see patterns, such as crashes being over-represented on curves on two lane rural roads, or at traffic signals.
So how can we change our approach to Safety.
The answer is looking at developing a systemic approach, which would be more proactive rather than reactive. These types of projects are normally low cost safety projects but will have a big impact on reducing crashes.
It is important to note that we haven’t abandoned the spot improvements, but instead we have supplemented it.

8. Engineering Projects Clearance Interval Retiming Project
Centerline Rumble Strips
Signing Projects
Curves
Pedestrians
Multi-Way Stops
Wrong-Way
Signs with Flashers

9. Clearance Interval Retiming
Use engineering methods for signal timing
Emphasis on rear-end and angle crashes
Older signals had yellow and red times based upon a rule of thumb.
New times are based on an engineering formula, and relies upon the speed that motorists are driving.
Consistency across our entire system

10. Horizontal Curves
Reduce roadway departure crashes and head-on crashes by delineating curves
Using pavement markings, chevrons, ODLAs and curve warning signs
In conformance with MUTCD
Local Roads
D1 250
D2 1072
D3 205
D4 415
Total 1942

11. Why?

12. Rumble Strips Reduce lane departure crashes
Types: Shoulder-Non-Freeway, Centerlines, Shoulder
Centerline: shallower and further apart - 40 Miles installed
200 miles are under construction in 2016
2) Edgeline:
2 types: one developed for freeway and one type for non-freeway roads
Freeway type are deeper and closer
Non-freeway are shallower and farther apart
New project in design has
100 miles of centerline
30 miles of shoulder rumble strips (non-freeway)
60 miles of free-way rumble strips
CLRS
Speed 35 mph
Vol 200vpd
Length 1 mile
Width 26’
Pavement must be newer than 3 years

13. Signing Projects Multi-way stop project Pedestrian Signing project
New signage - Retroreflective signs with post delineators
Pedestrian Signing project
Pedestrian Crossing Signs with midblock crossing treatments
Signs with Flashers
Multi-way stop
200 locations
Ped Signing
750 sign locations including 180 midblock crossings
Signs with flashers
250 locations: made signs MUTCD compliant
8” to 12”
FY signs
Incandescent to LED

14. Future Projects Horizontal Curves on State Routes
Remove night time flashing operation
High Friction Surface Treatments - HFST
Road Diets - Removing travel lanes

15. Road Diets Systematically determine candidate locations for road diets
Up to 47% reduction in overall crashes
Burnside Ave in East Hartford
4 lane to 2 lane
Burnside Ave will be completed in August
For more information on Road Diets FHWA has a great website

16. SHSP – Strategic Highway Safety Plan
Statewide coordinated safety plan
4 E’s
Reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries
ALL public roads

17. SHSP – Emphasis Areas Critical Roadway Locations Driver Behavior
Motorcyclists
Non-motorized Users
Traffic Incident Management
Young Drivers

18. Think about safety every time you get on the road!!
Finding Us
Safety has a website or
Think about safety every time you get on the road!!