Just as surely as sugar is included in a baker's cake and cookies so is the automobiles ingrained in all the recipes that traffic engineers use designing and managing the road network. The bibles for transportation engineers are the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, (MUTCD) and the "Green Book". They control everything you see as US roadways coast to coast.
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| MUTC, one of the bibles of traffic engineers regulates signs and signals |
Ever wondered how it is possible that traffic signs and road markings look much the same, whatever state you are in, even though the United States is a federation of states giving states authority over liquor, guns and education? California even created its own auto emission standards. But their road signs look the same as ours thanks to the MUTC. This is generally good news.
By contrast, in the European Union, defying all efforts to the contrary, each country has its own set of traffic signs which is quite confusing, given that there entire countries are often smaller than US States. The Brits even drive on the other side of the road. Freeway signs, green in the US, are also green in Italy and Greece, but blue in Germany, France, Spain and England. There are also blue in Poland where the directional signs for local roads are green. In Germany federal, state and county road directional signs are yellow, in Italy blue. One can easily see, what the MUTCD is good for. All across the US our Interstate signs are green and ll other directional road signs are white, except for parkways which are brown.
On November 7, 2015, the U.S. celebrated 80th birthday of the MUTCD. Whenever you see an easy-to-read sign, a bright edgeline marking on a foggy night, the countdown timer at a crosswalk, or a well-placed bike lane, take a moment to reflect on the more than eighty years of progress and innovation that the MUTCD embodies. This progress has resulted in safer, more efficient travel on our Nation's roads. (Federal Highway Administration website)MUTDC's eighty year history tracks the history of the automobile and its ascension to dominant force worldwide. As we increasingly question the car's dominion, seemingly innocent regulations such as the MUTCD need to be scrubbed as well. Although the website carefully mentions crosswalks and bikelanes, and transit, the rulebooks are actually rigged against those facilities.
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| The other bible regulates highway and street geometry |
Sometimes differences among states break open, most often in how to protect pedestrian and bicyclists. That's when states break ranks and allow "experimental" signs. Travelers may have seen flashing pedestrian crossing control signals ("hybrid beacons") they haven't encountered in Maryland. The reason: they were prohibited here until 2017.
A pedestrian hybrid beacon is a special type of hybrid beacon used to warn and control traffic at an unsignalized location to assist pedestrians in crossing a street or highway at a marked crosswalk. (MUTCD Chapter 4F)Yes, the pedestrians. They are mentioned in the MUTCD, for sure, but in the traditional way of looking at traffic, they are almost always seen as sand in the gearbox of smoothly flowing traffic. That's why there is a definition for "J-walking" as crossing a road outside marked crosswalks and that's why Maryland was initially troubled with those beacons as well.
In support of the "active modes" of walking and biking and in support of "complete streets" (streets that have a larger purpose than to accommodate cars) some traffic engineers split from the all powerful American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to form the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO). The purpose is to show alternatives to the design bibles such as the MUTCD or the AASHTO's "green book" (officially titled the Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets) where curb radii and lane widths are set. NACTO published the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, "the first national design standard for protected bike lanes" (The Atlantic) and then the Urban Street Design Guide, another kind of green book.
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| The alternative green book: Streets for real cities |
Yes, the pedestrians and bicyclists! Even though MUTCD and AASHTO go to great length to ensure that they encompass all modes of transportation, the car-centric focus remains deeply ingrained.
Example: Signal and crosswalk "warrants". This is the widely used tools to decide when and where what "control device" can be installed. The supposedly neutral question is: Is the device "warranted" by sufficient need? Need as in: Are there sufficiently many cars, pedestrians, bike present to warrant installing a signal, a crosswalk or a speed hump etc.?
One can easily see the catch 22 in that approach. Does seeing no peds really mean there is no need to accommodate them? An engineer going out counting how many pedestrians cross a street to determine whether a crosswalk or a pedestrian signal is "warranted" is following a deeply ironic logic, considering places where pedestrians take their life in their hands, such as walking across those treacherous suburban arterials which are 100% designed around the needs of cars and their drivers. A litmus test which is counting how many pedestrians risk their lives in the most adverse conditions is as flawed, as the determination of the need for a bridge by counting how many people swim across a river. Imagine determining the need for an airport or a restroom on an Interstate based on this model and you get the idea.
MUTC helpfully stipulates that while meeting the "warrant" test for a control device doesn't necessarily ensure its installation, not passing the warrant test makes its installation practically impossible. A pedestrian signal across a 7 lane State highway to get to a bus stop? Nope, not if there isn't an army of defiant that can be counted crossing those lanes during "peak hour", no matter that there is no crosswalk and the signal controlling the cars puts all of the traffic flows on a collision course with the crossing pedestrian. No matter that the bus stop may be the only way to get to town for those who don't drive. (This is a real example based on an actual conversation with a SHA engineer).
The rising number of pedestrian fatalities in Baltimore City and County and across the US makes the adherence to outmoded transportation bibles untenable. But change won't come easy. Engineers like the predictability and a set of rules which"passed the test of time" as Lee Billingsley put it, who is the chair of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the group that manages changes to the MUTCD.
Progress in the glacial pace of the MUTCD means that it now deems contraflow bikelanes acceptable, on an interim basis, as part of an experiment. When I was something like a Ryan Dorsey in my Stuttgart Borough in the 1970's, we had bike-lanes against the direction of a one way street installed as part of traffic calming. Some 43 years ago, it was indeed, an experiment. So were "gatekeeper" signals with the purpose of throttling traffic volumes in residential streets in order to keep cut through traffic out. Imagine that, a signal not to enhance flow, but one to impede it! This is still impossible in the US under MUTCD's signal warrant rules. (I suggested this once for the Carroll County town of Hampstead which was drowning in traffic. The idea was to queue traffic at the edge of town based on the capacity of a midtown intersection instead of having back-ups all across town. The traffic engineers called me crazy, stating that signal warrants would never allow that. They built a bypass instead. The traffic now backs up through Hanover, the next town up, where there is no bypass.
It will take many Ryan Dorseys to systematically adjust how our public streets are managed. City transportation director Michelle Pouciau seems to warm up to the idea of "complete streets". At least it has become her favorite thing to say that she is for a "better balance" on the streets.
In Baltimore County, the Democratic candidate for County Executive has promised to create a County department for transportation. Currently transport is handled by the Department of Public Works (DPW) using a deeply car centered culture against which the City DOT looks outright progressive.
The new alternative guides have opened up a new world. Ryan Dorsey's fire code modification was built on best practices of other cities collected by NACTO. Maybe one day other cities will copy best practices for equitable and complete streets from Baltimore. It wouldn't be the first time, even though Baltimore's time of being a transportation pioneer go back further than even the MUTCD.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
Example: Signal and crosswalk "warrants". This is the widely used tools to decide when and where what "control device" can be installed. The supposedly neutral question is: Is the device "warranted" by sufficient need? Need as in: Are there sufficiently many cars, pedestrians, bike present to warrant installing a signal, a crosswalk or a speed hump etc.?
One can easily see the catch 22 in that approach. Does seeing no peds really mean there is no need to accommodate them? An engineer going out counting how many pedestrians cross a street to determine whether a crosswalk or a pedestrian signal is "warranted" is following a deeply ironic logic, considering places where pedestrians take their life in their hands, such as walking across those treacherous suburban arterials which are 100% designed around the needs of cars and their drivers. A litmus test which is counting how many pedestrians risk their lives in the most adverse conditions is as flawed, as the determination of the need for a bridge by counting how many people swim across a river. Imagine determining the need for an airport or a restroom on an Interstate based on this model and you get the idea.
MUTC helpfully stipulates that while meeting the "warrant" test for a control device doesn't necessarily ensure its installation, not passing the warrant test makes its installation practically impossible. A pedestrian signal across a 7 lane State highway to get to a bus stop? Nope, not if there isn't an army of defiant that can be counted crossing those lanes during "peak hour", no matter that there is no crosswalk and the signal controlling the cars puts all of the traffic flows on a collision course with the crossing pedestrian. No matter that the bus stop may be the only way to get to town for those who don't drive. (This is a real example based on an actual conversation with a SHA engineer).
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| Contraflow bike-lane in Bad Cannstatt (Ger), temporary installment in the 70s, still there. |
The rising number of pedestrian fatalities in Baltimore City and County and across the US makes the adherence to outmoded transportation bibles untenable. But change won't come easy. Engineers like the predictability and a set of rules which"passed the test of time" as Lee Billingsley put it, who is the chair of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the group that manages changes to the MUTCD.
Progress in the glacial pace of the MUTCD means that it now deems contraflow bikelanes acceptable, on an interim basis, as part of an experiment. When I was something like a Ryan Dorsey in my Stuttgart Borough in the 1970's, we had bike-lanes against the direction of a one way street installed as part of traffic calming. Some 43 years ago, it was indeed, an experiment. So were "gatekeeper" signals with the purpose of throttling traffic volumes in residential streets in order to keep cut through traffic out. Imagine that, a signal not to enhance flow, but one to impede it! This is still impossible in the US under MUTCD's signal warrant rules. (I suggested this once for the Carroll County town of Hampstead which was drowning in traffic. The idea was to queue traffic at the edge of town based on the capacity of a midtown intersection instead of having back-ups all across town. The traffic engineers called me crazy, stating that signal warrants would never allow that. They built a bypass instead. The traffic now backs up through Hanover, the next town up, where there is no bypass.
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| This innocent looking left turn signal is not "warranted" but installed as a "gatekeeper" with very short green-times to keep cut-through commuter traffic out of a small residential street. First installed in the 70s, still there. Not allowed under MUTCD |
It will take many Ryan Dorseys to systematically adjust how our public streets are managed. City transportation director Michelle Pouciau seems to warm up to the idea of "complete streets". At least it has become her favorite thing to say that she is for a "better balance" on the streets.
In Baltimore County, the Democratic candidate for County Executive has promised to create a County department for transportation. Currently transport is handled by the Department of Public Works (DPW) using a deeply car centered culture against which the City DOT looks outright progressive.
The new alternative guides have opened up a new world. Ryan Dorsey's fire code modification was built on best practices of other cities collected by NACTO. Maybe one day other cities will copy best practices for equitable and complete streets from Baltimore. It wouldn't be the first time, even though Baltimore's time of being a transportation pioneer go back further than even the MUTCD.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
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