Hello and welcome to the Talking Operations web conference on MUTCD Notice of Proposed Amendments. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will be giving a brief introduction to the web conferencing environment before turning the session over to Hari Kalla who we are very pleased to have as our moderator for today’s seminar. Please be advised that today’s seminar is being recorded. Today’s seminar will last approximately an hour and 45 minutes, with 70 minutes allocated for the presenters and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. During the presentation, if you think of a question, you can type it into the smaller text box in the chat area on the left side of your screen. Please indicate who your question is directed toward and let -- unless your question is for all presenters. Please also be sure you are typing into the thin text box and not the large white area and that you send your question to everyone, rather than just the presenters. The presenters will be unable to answer your questions during the presentations, but Hari will use the questions in the chat box for the question and answer session at the end a file will be posted to the national transportation operations coalition or NTOC website within the next week. We encourage you to direct others in your office who may have been have not been able to attend this conference to access the recording. The PowerPoint presentations used during the recording will also be available within the next week on the NTOC site. Attendees will be notified of the PowerPoint and the closed captioning of this seminar at this time I would like to introduce Hari Kalla the moderator of this web cast. He is in the federal highway administration's Washington, D.C. headquarters. Prior to joining FXWA in 2001, he was a senior design engineer for the New York state department of transportation. Is he a registered professional engineer and a certified professional traffic operations engineer. And now I'll turn things over to Hari who will get things started. Thank you, Jennifer. Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. And thank you for joining us for this NTOC webinar on the MUTCD notice of proposed amendment NPA. On the screen you see the names of all the FSWA MUTCD team members as Jennifer mentioned my name is Hari Kalla and let me today, for this webinar, I have Scott Wainwright and Ken Wood. Before I go further, let me just give you a brief introduction of Scott Wainwright and Ken Wood. Scott Wainwright is a member of our MUTCD team here at the federal highway headquarters office of operations. He's responsible for part three and part four of the MUTCD. That's basically markings and signals. Prior to joining FSWA in 2001, Scott was chief traffic engineer for Montgomery county, Maryland in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., retiring with 27 years of service. Scott spent the first five years of his career as a traffic engineer with the state DOT. He is a district professional engineer and a certified professional traffic operations engineer. Ken Wood is a traffic operations engineer with operations technical service team in FHWA's research center. He's also a member of our MUTCD team and he's responsible for the part six of the MUTCD with traffic controls. Ken has spent previously 30 years with the Illinois department of transportation and he retired as the state traffic operations engineer. He's also a professional engineer and certified traffic operations engineer. So let's move on to the NPA. As a part of this NPA, we are proposing hundreds of changes to the current 2003 MUTCD. Our objective today is to give you a brief overview of some of the major changes we are proposing. To revise the MUTCD, we have to follow the federal rule-making process and we started that process on January 2, 2008 by publishing our NPA, our proposals, in federal register for the comments. As you see on the screen, we have rather long comment period for this effort, the NPA, just because we have a lot of changes. Our comment period will end on July 31 and after that, we will review and analyze all the comments and our goal is to have the final rule, the next edition of the MUTCD sometime next year. We have put a lot of good information on our website and on this screen you are -- you can see our website address, so I'll encourage you again to go and look at our website and there's a lot of good information, anything and everything you want to know about this NPA. Also, I would strongly you to submit comments, and to submit comments, you can submit comments electronically and there's a website address, again, on the screen, it's www.regulations.gov and you can submit comments there. We get often asked how this NPA relates to the federal highways final rules on sign reflectivity. As you probably know, the federal highway issued the final rule on sign last year, late last year 2007 and this sign rule actually modifies the current 2003 MUTCD and the effective date for the sign rule as you see on the screen is -- was actually January 22, 2008. To keep it simple and not confuse the matter, the NPA document itself does not show the changes, but when we publish the final rule, we will incorporate the signed natural material in the next edition of the MUTCD. Let me talk a little bit about the introduction. We are adding a clarification that for the purpose of MUTCD, the phrase open to public travel includes the all roads privately or publicly owned roads where public is allowed or invited to travel without any access restrictions and that includes the toll roads, roads within the shopping centers, parking lots, airports, sports arenas and other similar business and recreational facilities. This change actually reflects the final rule we did in 2006 that modified the code of federal regulations to include that definition. The only change we have in this proposed -- this proposal is we are excluding the military bases from this definition. So the purpose of -- hopefully the bottom line is that the use of signs like this one you see in the picture, the stop sign, will become less frequent on the private facilities open to public travel. Our compliance dates are ranging from two years to 15 years are being proposed for some of the significant changes in this NPA and the purpose of this -- adding these long compliance dates in some cases is to minimize any impact on the states and local highway agencies. And also, what we have done is the compliance dates which are associated with the 2003 MUTCD, now we are assigning them specific dates rather than having two years or five -- ten years or 15 years. And, also, the compliance dates, which will have been reached by early 2009, now we are deleting those compliance dates. Now, for -- with respect to the changes proposed for the part one, certain types of signs and other devices that don't have any traffic control purposes, but they are still being placed by the permission or by the public agencies are now being identified as not considered to be traffic control devices. These signs or other devices, they are not intended for the use by road users in general and their method is only important to individuals who have been instructed in their meetings. Some of the examples, you see these pictures, and they include the devices to assist highway maintenance workers, such as the snowplow markers and the markers to identify the culverts and drops in locations, the devices such as the fire hydrant markers markers. There are more examples you see on this screen, signs giving civic organization meetings. What we are doing is we are also adds a guidance statement that these type of devices should be located where they will not interfere with the traffic control devices. The color purple is being assigned to indicate facilities or lanes restricted to use only by vehicles equipped with ETC, electronic toll collection transponders. In order to readily identify such facilities using signs or pavement marking. So you will see in our proposal for the signs that we are using this new color purple for ETC facilities. The evolution of electronic toll has tremendous capacity. In addition to the electronic toll collections, we have seen the significant and more use of the managed lane concept. The managed lanes such as tolls, vehicle occupancy requirements, vehicle restrictions that are variable and putting [ Indiscernible ] On -- to provide uniformity, you will see that throughout the MUTCD, we are proposing a whole bunch of new signs and markings for the managed lanes and electronic toll collections facilities. Now, some general changes to the Part 2 signs. In order to provide additional uniformity, we are adding a whole bunch of new symbols in the MUTCD. These symbols, they are based on the extensive research we have done here and as well as the successful international practice. Some of these symbols are being used in Canada for a long time and they have very good track records, so you will see all along in our NPA that we are introducing any -- new symbols. Similarly, you will see a whole bunch of new symbols for toll plaza signing as well. When we talk about the proposal for the chapter 2 E, you will see the more details on this. The recommendation that the size of letters on signs should be based on one inch of letter height per 30 feet of legibility distance is being revised to 1 inch by 30 feet in order for sign legibility to be based on 20/40 vision. You probably know most of the states now allow drivers with 20/40 corrected vision to obtain driver's licenses. And also this change is consistent with the older recommendations from older driver handbook and with the increasing number of older drivers, the federal highway believes that 20/40 vision should be the basis of letter heights used on signs. This change will generally not impact the design of guide signs because existing MUTCD provisions for guide sign letter heights provides sufficient legibility distances for 20/40 vision in most cases. The sizes of some regulatory or warning signs used in some situations will need to be increased to meet this new criteria. The option of using all upper-case letters for the names of places, streets or highways are being deleted and we are also adding a requirement that these names be composed of lower case letters with first upper case level. The studies have shown that legibility and recognition distances are better for place names and destination when the first letter is upper case followed by the lower case letters. We are adding a new section regarding the methods that can be used to enhance the conspicuity of standards, regulatory warning and guide signs to improve uniformity. We noticed that a lot of agencies are trying different methods to improve the conspicuity. So what we are doing with this MUTCD that we are proposing is allowing new options which can be used to enhance the conspicuity of standard signing. The object markers have chapter 3 C and the barricade versions from section 3 F01, we are taking both sections and we are relocating to the part two and we have created a new chapter called chapter 2 L. Object markers and barricades are typically from shading material, substrate and installed on the post, so they are actually more like signs and most of the agencies use them as signs rather than markings, so to us it made sense to relocate those sections to part 2. Now, let's talk about the chapter 2 B, regulatory signs. A new sign size table is being added that requires larger minimum sizes for certain regulatory signs facing traffic on multi- traffic on multi-lane conventional roads. Also, we are adding new recommendations regarding factors that should be considered when establishing the intersection control through the use of stop or yield sign. Our objective here is to provide a more logical progression from the least restrictive to the more restrictive control. New types of arrows being added that may be used on intersection lane control signs for approaches to roundabout and this change, this proposal will correspond with a similar in our marking section, part 3, we are making the similar proposal and Scott Wainwright will talk about that a little bit in more detail detail. New roundabout directional arrow sign and a new roundabout circulation sign are being added. The use of roundabout has increased over the past ten years and it is important that more detailed information on effective regulatory signing of roundabouts be provided. The new provisions regarding the use of one-way sign on roundabouts are B being added in con sis -- are being added in consistency for roundabouts. We are deleting the use of 2-way, 3-way and 4-way plaques and the use of all-way plaques will be required if all approaches have stop signs. The recommendation that the -- that a sign mounted back to back with a stop or yield sign should stay within the edges of the stop or yield sign is being clarified. And we are also adding guidance which would say that the size of the stop or yield sign should be increased if necessary to accomplish this recommendation. We are adding several new plaques that may be mounted with speed limit signs to indicate that a speed limit is applicable to the entire city, neighborhood or residential area unless otherwise posted. It is often unnecessary and it's very costly for the public agencies to install the speed limit sign at every minor residential street. A new no straight through symbol sign is being added. The sign is useful at four-legged intersection where through movement is to be prohibited and the street or roadway does not have do not enter conditions. We are also adding new regulations regarding the regulatory signs for lanes restricted to ETC or electronic toll collection only. We are adding a new regulatory sign that designates the end of HOV lane restrictions restrictions. We are adding a new section that will describe the regulatory sign at toll plazas and for managed lanes in order to provide consistency and uniformity in signing practice for these type of facilities. As you know, the managed lanes and the electronic toll lanes are becoming increasingly common and the uniform signing is very important to improve the safety and operation. A new section is being added regarding the use of regulatory signs for jug handles for several of the most common geometric jug handles. They are being used in a number of states. The purpose here is to provide consistency and uniformity. A new narrow version of the keep existing symbolic keep right sign is being added to provide agencies with the flexibility to use this optional sign where there is insufficient lateral clearance for standards width keep right signs on the narrow median nose. As you can see the application in the picture shown in this screen. A new option is being added that allows the lower mounting height for do not enter and wrong way signs as a specific exception where a continuing study indicates that it would address wrong way movements at free way expressway entrance ramps. Again, this has been tried in some states and has been proven very effective. The existing recommendation that one-way signs be placed on the near right, far right and far right corners of each intersection of the directional roadways of divided highways is being revised to a requirement. The existing option that allows agencies to omit the use of one-way signs as intersections with median of less than 30 feet is being revised to allow these signs to be written only on the medians, so requiring them to install it at the outside corner of the intersection. A new requirement is being added that two one-way signs, one near side and one far side, be installed for each approach to a one-way street at T-intersections or cross intersections. We are adding a new requirement that divided highway crossing signs be installed on near right corner of intersection for all approaches to a divided highway, unless the divided highways has pretty low ADD, lower than 400 vehicles per day and has a speed limit of 25 miles or lower. We are adding a number of signs for the pay parking or pay stations for use. When fee is charged for parking and a mid block pay station is used instead of individual parking meters. Again, you see this more and more, public agencies are using these mid block pay stations. Pedestrian push button signs that do not clearly indicate which crosswalk signal is actuated by each pedestrian detector are either being deleted or redesigned. So they do identify a specific crosswalk. The design of many of the pedestrian push button signs are being revised to include a standard symbol for push button that begins the push button message. Design of the sign R10-15, the turning traffic must yield to pedestrians, now we are changing that sign to include a symbol sign so that the sign can be more -- improve the conspicuity of the sign. Two new ramp metering regulatory signs are being added to provide uniformity in the ramp meter signing. Now, revisions to the chapter 2 C warning signs. We are deleting a number of word message signs because the corresponding symbol signs have been in use for more than 35 years and the word signs almost became obsolete. The use of fluorescent yellow-green is being changed from an option to recommendation for warning signs associated with pedestrian, bicyclists and playground and we are also adding a requirement of the use of the yellow-green background for the warning sign associated with school buses and school zones. A new requirement is being added that minimum size of all diamond shaped warning signs facing traffic on multi-lane conventional roads shall be 36" by 36". That again is based on the driver handbook recommendation. We are adding a new table to define the required, recommended and optional horizontal alignment warning signs to be used for different situations and conditions. This is one of the key safety recommendations and has been used consistently as a very effective safety measure. So we thought that we need to provide a little bit more information on these type of signs. We are also adding a new table to provide the spacing criteria for Chevron alignment signs. A new combination horizontal alignment/advisory exit and ramp speed signs are being added for optional use, a ramp or exit is not referring to the drivers in their exit lanes or where the [ Indiscernible ] Needs to be specifically identified as being on the ramp rather than on the main line. We are adding the new warning signs on the free way ends and expressway ends so there are so many locations where the free way and expressway ends by changing to an uncontrolled access highway and it is important to warn -- in those situations to warn drivers of the end of free way or expressway conditions. All traffic must exit, we are adding this new warning sign where a driver must leave the free way or expressway on an exit ramp until the remainder of the express is being built or open to traffic. A new symbol sign for the shoulder drop-off and also the two supplemental plaques are being added to warn road users are either low shoulder or uneven lanes. A new symbol sign for the falling rocks and the educational plaque is being added to warn road users of possibility of rocks falling on to the roadways. A new grooved payment sign and a new metal bridge deck sign is being added to warn motorcyclists of road surface conditions that would primarily affect them. A new recommendation is being added that a reduced speed limit ahead sign ahead be used where the speed limit is being reduced by more than 10 miles per hour. We are adding three new toll road plaques to provide consistency and uniformity for the signing on toll facilities. A new combined bicycle, pedestrian sign and trail crossing supplemental plaque is being added to provide warning of a shared use path/crossing that is used by both bicyclists and pedestrians. Several new symbol signs to warn drivers of possibility -- possible presence of large animals is being added to supplement the existing deer, cattle and equestrian signs. And now Scott Wainwright will talk about chapter 2 D. Thanks, Hari, and good morning or good afternoon. We are going through chapter 2 D now which is guide signs for conventional roads. We are adding some provisions for the use of pictographs on guide signs such as shown on this slide here. The idea is to limit the size of these pictographs so that they don't overwhelm the message, the primary message of the sign and in the sign shown on the bottom, the MU pictograph there actually exceeds the maximum size which would be the size of a route marker that would ordinarily be used on the guide sign. Roundabouts, Hari already mentioned the regulatory signs for roundabouts have been proposed. There's also proposals for designs of guide signs, destination signs for roundabouts and they also feature the optional use of those curved stem or fish hook type arrows, also complementing the pavement marking proposal. When route marker assemblies are constructed like shown in this photo here with the auxiliary messages on a green background sign rather than being comprised of individual signs, the proposal is to not use the scheme that's shown in the right-hand photo there. In other words, instead of mounting the auxiliary signs directly on to the green background, the practice is to do as shown in the left-hand photo. For toll facilities where there's a numbered route, such as in this case a U.S. 40, if that route is a toll facility, we now are adding this toll auxiliary plaque so that the public can be advised of the fact that it is a toll facility. Similarly, if the facility is restricted to use only by vehicles with ETC, then this type of auxiliary sign would be used with the route marker. We're not changing anything as far as the required letter heights for street name signs that are in the 2003 edition, but just to make it easier for agencies to discern what the requirements are, in this case recommendations, we're proposing to add a table which kind of makes it clearer. There is a provision in the existing manual that's been there for quite a long time that says that the background color of street name signs should be green and that's a should condition rather than a shall and the reality is that all around the country, many, many local agencies are using all different colors for street name signs and, unfortunately, many of them provide poor contrast of the letters on the background. So what we are proposing is to put wording into chapter 2 D concerning street name signs that would specifically limit the alternative backgrounds, the alternatives to green, it would be limited to blue, brown or black and the reason, again, is for better uniformity of street name signs with good contrast. What you see on the screen here right now in the current edition of the MUTCD is a recommendation, it's a guidance, but it's not required. We are proposing to change this to a requirement that on multi-lane conventional road approaches to an interchange, guide signs shall be provided that identify the direction of the turn or the lane to use for each of the ramps. We feel this is critical information and there's a lot of particularly older driver research that's shown this is extremely important to help drivers get into the correct lane before they actually reach the interchange. You've probably seen a lot of these kinds of signs in many of the cities and local towns around the country. They're a very popular thing to guide traffic to local destinations and points of interest within the community. But there are, also, unfortunately, some very poor designs of these kinds of signs that are out there with unusual, hard to read fonts, poor choices of colors, not good contrast, small letters, that sort of thing. So we are proposing to add provisions into the MUTCD that will allow for these kinds of signs using accepted principles of sign design, but with enough flexibility in the design provisions that a community can put its own imprint on it and express its own identity, if you will. Now we'll move into chapter 2 E, which is guide signs for free ways and expressways and the practice of using slanted down arrows on these overhead guidelines is going to be prohibited. As you can see in the sign in the photo here, slanting the arrows creates, in many cases, a very confusing sign. The landing of the arrow can imply to drivers -- the slanting of the arrow can imply to drivers movement out of the lane. And some agencies have used these signs really just to save costs, to reduce the size of the sign instead of putting an individual arrow directly over the lane. So the proposal is that in the -- in the next edition of the manual is those arrows would have to be vertical and centered over the approximate center of the lane that they apply to. Left exits, as you know, are usually very unanticipated on free ways and expressways and the current recommendation for the use of these black and yellow left plaques with the exit numbers would be changed to a shall condition. Diagramattic sign design is an issue that has turned up in the older driver research. The current format of diagrammatic signs where the lanes are shown with these arrows are much too subtle, particularly when it cops to option lane exits and splits and things like that. These signs, at best, convey a sense of directionality, which direction the ramp goes off, but being able to discern which lane goes in which direction from these little dotted lane lines is just not effective, the studies have shown. So we are proposing for the next edition of the MUTCD that this new style of diagramattic sign be used for any option lane exits and splits and it features an up arrow over each lane. Studies have shown this is much more effective, it provides a much longer decision sight distance for drivers and there's a much higher rate of comprehension on the part of drivers with this type of diagramattic sign. The proposal to allow the use of an advisory speed legend as an addition to this exit direction sign when you've got a particularly low speed exit ramp, this would supplement, but not replace the normal post mounted advisory speed sign. There's only seven states out of the 50 that are still using what's called the sequential exit numbering system as opposed to the mile post system, which is now called reference location system. So we feel it is time for national uniformity on this issue. We think that drivers have come to expect the mile post system of exit numbering and can be confused when they're in a state that's not using it. So we are proposing that the exit numbering by mile post become the standard practice. Also, when there's a suffixion the exit number, such as shown on these photos, is going to be proposing a requirement that the space between the number and the letter should be at least equal to one half of the letter height of the suffix. The reason is as you can see on the photo on the right, the B suffix can look like an 8 from a distance and separating it from the 46 makes it more identifiable as a B rather than an 8. Preferential lanes, you may have read about -- heard about the bus crash involving HOV lanes in Atlanta a while back and there was an investigation of the signing associated with HOV lanes and other preferential lanes