Traffic & safety services

Technical assistance

Providing technical assistance, and connecting local jurisdictions with other WSDOT offices and the Federal Highway Administration to provide technical assistance. Here are some example topics:

• Applying traffic laws, rules, and design standards.
• Using traffic control devices, including:
  - The 2009 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), which provides national standards and best practices for the use of traffic control devices.
  - WAC 468-95, which modifies the MUTCD for Washington state's circumstances and must be used with the MUTCD.
  - Interim Approvals and Experimentations for the MUTCD
• Helping apply tools to manage motor vehicle speed and access, including traffic calming, road diets, and complete streets.
• Access Management
• High friction surface treatments
• Nighttime visibility (traffic signs, pavement markings, and roadway lighting)
• Traffic analysis
• Traffic signals: improving traffic signal operations and/or visibility
• Roundabouts/Compact Roundabouts
• Shoulder treatments such as rumble strips and Safety Edge
• Work zone safety and mobility
• Helping develop projects for Federal Highway Administration's Accelerated Innovation Deployment (AID) Demonstration Program funding.

Project development

Providing technical and project development support for federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding, which includes the City Safety, County Safety, and Railway-Highway Crossings Programs.

Helping reduce crashes, including fatal and serious injury crashes by:

• Crash data analysis including GIS and crash tree analysis.
• Developing or updating local road safety plans.
• Conducting operational reviews of roads and streets and developing solutions that have the potential to reduce crashes.

Traffic analysis

Loaning traffic analysis equipment: Contact us to borrow the following:

• Ball bank indicator for horizontal curves
  (used to determine appropriate curve warning speeds for horizontal curves)
• Traffic sign retroreflectometer (used to measure sign retroreflectivity levels)
• Retroreflective sign calibration panels
  (used to calibrate devices to measure retroreflectivity)
• Retroreflective traffic sign panel comparison kit
  (used to compare existing signs to minimum retroreflectivity levels)
• Smart level (used to measure slopes of roadways and ramps)