Agency Concerns About Impacts
About 75 percent of the public roads in the United States are maintained by local agencies (municipalities, counties, parishes and highway districts), 21 percent by state agencies, and the remainder by Federal agencies (3). Therefore, it is imperative that the impacts of the proposed changes to the MUTCD to set minimum maintained levels of traffic sign retroreflectivity on state and local agencies be carefully assessed.
Impacts can take many forms and they can be considered positive or negative. For this analysis, the concerns identified by participants in a series of four workshops on nighttime sign visibility conducted for the FHWA at locations across the country in 2002 were used as a starting point ( 2). About 100 state and local officials participated in these workshops that were organized to present updated information on the FHWA’s plans to implement new minimum maintained sign retroreflectivity levels through changes to the MUTCD. During these workshops, the participants cited numerous perceived impacts the new levels would have on their agencies. It needs to be stressed here that many of the impacts cited were perceived. Most agencies had not initiated thinking about how they would determine their degree of compliance and/or implement more rigorous sign management processes to address night visibility needs. The major concerns expressed by the participants are listed in Table 1 (4).
It should be noted that most of the participant discussion in the workshops focused upon the negative impacts of implementing new provisions (minimum levels) for retroreflectivity of traffic signs. The extent of negative impacts (if any) will vary from agency to agency, depending upon the current sign replacement practices in individual agencies. The negative impacts are expected to be smaller for those agencies that currently have proactive sign replacement practices. There is also the potential for positive impacts from improved signing, including lower overall sign costs due to more effective sign replacement strategies and improved safety and mobility for the driving public due to better sign visibility. Participants recognized their agency roles and noted that adoption of the new minimum levels would be useful in getting their agencies to increase funding for sign improvements. The workshop participants suggested that the new minimum levels should not be imposed without Federal funding assistance. The impacts analysis did not consider this or other means to offset the costs of sign inspection, replacements, and long-term maintenance of adequate night visibility.
A broad spectrum of concerns is summarized in Table 1. While these can all be translated into dollar figures, it is not easy to generate reliable estimates for some factors and others for which it is unnecessary. The report is organized to address questions associated with the concerns at increasingly higher degrees of detail. Chapter 2 addresses questions about the costs impact for individual signs. For example, how much will need to be spent on sign face materials? Chapter 3 addresses questions at the agency level. For example, how many in-place signs do not meet the minimum levels? And, what will be the impacts on agencies relative to implementing and administering processes and practices to comply with the proposed new rule? The national impacts and tort liability concerns are addressed. Chapter 4 attempts to determine if there are quantifiable safety and operational benefits that can be attributed to improving the night visibility of traffic signs? Through these chapters the participant’s concerns will be addressed. Chapter 5 then provides a summary and conclusions.
Table 1 – Summary of Participant Concerns from FHWA Sign Workshops in 2002 (4)
Administrative Impacts
- New guidelines may require agencies to devote more personnel to signing activities.
- Personnel will need training to conduct various functions needed to assess or manage the nighttime visibility of traffic signs.
- Training activities may need to be coordinated with requirements at a national or state level for certification to assure that staff members are qualified.
- Many agencies will need to increase their sign documentation efforts to have the records that show evaluations were conducted and that signs met the evaluation criteria. Agencies will also need to keep these records over a longer period of time.
- It will be difficult for transportation management to support requests to elected officials for additional funding unless a documented safety benefit can be linked to the expenditures.
Fiscal Impacts
- The assertion of the 1998 FHWA report ( 3) that many agencies “will not likely feel any additional impact of implementing the minimum retroreflectivity guidelines” has not been ascertained.
- The guidelines may lead to a higher sign replacement rate than presently exists. This will increase the signing costs for an agency.
- Even if sign replacement rates remain the same, the use of more expensive sheeting may increase costs.
- Factors that are expected to increase the fiscal burden on agencies include (not all impacts will apply to all agencies):
- Cost of training personnel.
- Cost of overtime pay for nighttime inspections.
- Cost of acquiring evaluation equipment (for example, retroreflectometers or inspection panels).
- Cost of additional documentation activities and longer retention of the information.
- The fiscal resources required to meet the minimum visibility/retroreflectivity guidelines may have to be diverted from other transportation responsibilities.
- Implementing processes to manage sign replacement has been shown in some agencies to reduce overall sign costs, although the start-up costs can be large.
Implementation Impacts
- Some participants felt that conducting nighttime visual inspections were beyond the capabilities of their agency, primarily due to the overtime pay that would be required.
- A few participants expressed the opinion that they felt that daytime sign inspections would be just as good as nighttime inspections. However, most participants agreed that daytime inspections couldn’t be used to reliably assess nighttime sign visibility.
- Guidelines that eliminate the use of Type III (high intensity) sheeting for the legend of overhead signs will be a large burden to agencies with many overhead signs. Most of these signs currently use Type III sheeting and the replacement intervals for these signs are typically longer than post-mounted signs.
- A long time period to implement the changes will reduce the impacts on agencies. This will help agencies to make the necessary changes in policies, practices, procedures, staffing, and training, as well as replacing existing signs that don’t meet the requirements.
- The evaluation methods should be implemented in a manner that recognizes the potential for changes in sign visibility that can occur between evaluation periods. There are many different events and occurrences that may lead to a decrease in sign visibility. Examples include:
- Sign removal due to vandalism or crash impact.
- Physical damage to the sign face (which may or may not be visible in daytime conditions).
- Sign sheeting deterioration.
- Growth of brush or vegetation.
Tort Impacts
- The specifics of the MUTCD langu
- age will have a significant impact on the extent of the tort liability impacts on agencies. The greater the level of detail in the MUTCD language, the greater the expected tort exposure for agencies.
- Sign visibility and/or sign retroreflectivity has not generally been a significant tort issue in the past.
- There is a need to recognize that the minimum levels in the guidelines are a rough benchmark that is dependent upon a number of factors.
|
