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U.S. Department of Transportation

Federal Highway Administration

400 Seventh St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590

February 9, 2006

In Reply Refer To:HSA-10/B-143

Mr. William B. Williams, P.E.
Standards Engineer
Wyoming Department of Transportation
5300 Bishop Boulevard
Cheyenne, Wyoming 82009-3340

Dear Mr. Williams :

In your letter dated January 17 you requested formal Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) acceptance of a transition design from a box-beam guardrail to a permanent concrete barrier. You further requested FHWA’s approval to use this design connected to a vertical concrete barrier, a New Jersey or F-shape concrete barrier, or to a single-slope concrete barrier. Drawings of the transition showing general details and schematics of its connection to the four concrete barrier profiles noted above are enclosed with this letter. I assume that anyone requiring detailed drawings of this non-proprietary design may obtain them through your office.

Based on its similarity to the transition design tested for use with your Wyoming steel post and beam bridge rail (FHWA acceptance letter B37A) and particularly the design tested with the BEAT-SSCC (FHWA acceptance letter CC69B), I agree that your proposed transition may be considered a crashworthy design meeting National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report 350 test level 3 without further testing. The addition of the steel rubrail and the modification of each of the safety shapes to a vertical wall at the connection point appear to be significant improvements over the BEAT-SSCC design.

Sincerely yours,


/original signed by/

John R. Baxter, P.E.
Director, Office of Safety Design
Office of Safety

4 Enclosures

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