EL PUENTE Newsletter of the Puerto Rico Transportation Technology Transfer Center University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Volume 24, Number 01, Year 2010 In this issue Revised rules for traffic control devices in the MUTCD 2009 P.1 Commercial and bus drivers banned from texting while driving P.2 MASH 2009 replaces NCHRP350 for new road safety hardware P.3 Center news
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Transportation week at UPRM
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Training workshops & seminars P.10 Meet the trainer
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Message from the editor
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Revised rules for traffic control devices in the MUTCD 2009 States must adopt the 2009 National MUTCD as their legal State standard for traffic control devices within two years. Visit mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov for details. The new version of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) was released on December 16, 2009. The MUTCD is the national standard for all traffic control devices used in all streets, highways, bikeways, and private roads open to public travel, ensuring the uniformity of traffic control devices across the nation to help reduce crashes and traffic congestion. “Safety is this Department’s top priority” declared Ray LaHood, U.S. Transportation Secretary, during the release of the comprehensive update of the MUTCD. “These new and updated standards will help make our nation’s roads and bridges for drivers, construction workers and pedestrians alike”. The MUTCD 2009 promotes the “complete streets” concept, an effort to ensure roads accommodate all types of travel modes, not just the automobile. Among the new and updated requirements include brighter, larger, and more legible highway signs, adding different lane markings for non-continuing lanes, extending walk times for pedestrians at intersections, better pavement markings for bike lanes, use of high visibility garments by road workers, adding overhead lane use control signs in multi-lane roadways, expanding the use of flashing yellow arrow signals, and identifying electronic toll lanes. This article presents some of the main changes in the MUTCD 2009 related to pavement markings and traffic signals. Previous editions of EL PUENTE presented the proposed changes in Part 2 Signs and Part 6 Temporary Traffic Control. (article continues in page 4)
New Technical Resources in our Library: ● AASHTO Manual for
Assessing Safety Hardware ● FHWA Comprehen-
sive Intersection Resource Library DVD ● FHWA Manual on
Uniform Traffic Control Devices 2009 ● FHWA Red-Light Run-
ning Handbook ● FHWA Sign Retrore-
flectivity Toolkit CDROM
The Puerto Rico Transportation Technology Transfer Center is part of a network of 58 centers through the United States that comprises the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) and the Tribal Technical Assistance Program (TTAP), which enable local governments, counties, and cities, to improve their roads and bridges by supplying them with a variety of training programs, an information clearinghouse, new and existing technology updates, personalized technical assistance, and newsletters.