The 12 Days of Safety  Myths
December 18, 2018
By Don Kostelec

The Safety House has so many lights strung upon it that it puts Clark Griswold’s abode to shame. 

Context Sensitive Solutions. Complete Streets Policy. Active Transportation Plans. Corridor Studies. Environmental Justice. Heads Up. Vision Zero. 

When we try to plug them into our communities, the results are the same as Clark’s: A massive build-up, great presentations, heightened expectations, drumroll, please…DRUMROLL…

Doink. 

I’m tired of the false promises. I’m tired of being strung along by the engineering profession, telling us that whatever their latest wave of buzzword practices will be finally be the solution that leads to safer streets for all road users. 

The buzzwords seem to evolve but the actual engineering of streets doesn’t. In my nearly 18 years in this profession I feel like we’ve been exposed to three major phases of false promises. 

Context Sensitive Solutions
This was the rage in the late 1990s and early 2000s. On the heels of major federal transportation legislation in the early 1990s, FHWA published its Flexibility in Highway Design manual in 1997. It states on page 15, Considering Scale:

•  “People driving in a car see the world at a much different scale than people walking on the street… In many road designs, pedestrian needs were considered only after the needs of motorized vehicles. Not only does this make for unsafe conditions for pedestrians, it can also drastically change how a roadway corridor is used. Widening a roadway that once allowed pedestrian access to the two sides of the street can turn the roadway into a barrier and change the way pedestrians use the road and its edges.”

That was 21 years ago. They recognized the engineering process was predicated on first identifying and laying out the road for all the comfort needs of a motorist: Detailed vehicle level of service analysis, 85th percentile speed analysis, number of lanes, turning radii, etc. If a community was lucky enough to have sidewalks or bike lanes included, those features were last in line in the design process and simply slapped alongside the primary features for motorists. There was no integration of how the needs of people who walk or bike were influenced beyond the presence or absence of their own five-feet of space alongside the road. 

Assessing the character or context of an area, both its human and natural environment, was identified as a key component to transportation engineering through that FHWA guide. It was meant to change the design paradigm and make the needs of not only active transportation users, but other facets of the environment, an input to the design and something that drove an authentic evaluation of the tradeoffs. 

This spawned the Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) movement. In 2004, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials published A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design in response to CSS and building upon FHWA’s initial flexibility guide. 

The introduction of AASHTO’s flexibility guide states: 

• “Context sensitive solutions (CSS)…recognizes that a transportation facility, by the way it is integrated with the community, can have far-reaching impacts (positive and negative) beyond its traffic or transportation function.” 

The AASHTO flexibility guide has some striking statements that contradict assertions you still commonly hear from traffic engineers and other transportation professionals: 

• Level of Service: AASHTO’s vehicle level of service measures “are for guidance only. Failure to achieve a level of service indicated in (AASHTO’s LOS table) does not constitute of a non-standard design decision.” (page 13)

• Design Speed: “Given the historic equating of design speed with design quality, the notion of designing a high-quality, low speed road is counter-intuitive to some highway engineers…Context-sensitive solutions for the urban environment often involve creating a safe roadway environment in which the driver is encouraged by the roadway’s features and the surrounding area to operate a low speeds.” (page 19). Today we call that “target speed.” 

• Lane Widths: “In urban areas…narrower lane widths may be appropriate. Narrower lane widths lessen pedestrian crossing distances…and…also tend to encourage lower speeds…There is less direct evidence of a safety benefit associated with incrementally wider lanes in urban areas. It is noted that lane widths may vary from 10 to 12 ft for arterials.” (pages 64-65) 

• Liability: “In order to reduce exposure to losses due to liability claims, it is essential that the planning and design process be thoroughly documented. If a new or innovative solution is proposed, reference to where it has been applied, how it has performed, and how the circumstances are similar…would be good information to include in project reports…Note that this requirement is really no different from best current practices.” (page 107) 

The AASHTO flexibility guide served as the foundation for what at the time was the most meaningful project of my career: The Ada County Highway District’s Transportation & Land Use Integration Plan. It was a $1 million effort I led in 2006 and 2007 with a goal of changing the way the agency conducted its business with regard to project design. If we tried it today, we would probably call it a Vision Zero plan. 

We bought 40 copies of AASHTO’s flexibility guide to give to department managers, planners, and engineers. When it was clear the agency didn’t want to change its practices, I left the agency and the Boise region.

At my going away party, my boss, who was equally frustrated at the agency’s stubbornness, handed me a copy of the AASHTO flexibility guide and said to me, “Take this with you. I know the other copies won’t be used here.” 

Complete Streets
Despite all the Context Sensitive Solutions guidance from FHWA and AASHTO clearly justifying safer design considerations for vulnerable road users, it didn’t really change anything. It was just another bucket of coal from Santa Claus, PE. 

Enter the Complete Streets movement. As much as the FHWA and AASHTO flexibility guidance justified a change in perspective, it was realized that state and local agencies still had to adopt their own design and funding policies and that some agencies took federal guidance and proceed to adopt facets of it as more stringent local design standards or policies than the federal guidance suggested.  

I departed Boise and moved back to my home state of North Carolina in early 2008 to take a job in private consulting. I knew at that time North Carolina’s DOT had a pretty good reputation for Context Sensitive Solutions.

At least that’s what I thought based on tens of thousands of dollars NCDOT spent sending their staff to give presentations about it at national conferences. They bragged about trained more than 1,500 of NCDOT’s designers and project decision-makers on CSS.  I think it’s safe to say they spent more sending people to those conferences and training them than they spent implementing it. 

In July 2009, the NCDOT Board of Directors adopted what was called a “Complete Streets policy.”  We were all duped into thinking this would somehow change the organization and make those CSS concepts more applicable to active transportation needs. 

It was held up by national organizations as a model for others to embrace and implement. The National Complete Streets Coalition, now Smart Growth America, said, “The National Complete Streets Coalition applauds the NCDOT for taking this step and looks forward the many great projects sure to come out of the new policy.”

#LOL #ROFLMAO

It turns out that what NCDOT called a “policy” was really nothing more than a resolution, a declaration of the Board of Transportation. The “policy”  contained no compulsory statement for NCDOT engineers to follow; no “shall” or “must” statements. It made no commitment to fund implementation of the policy. 

I could write 10,000 words on the debacle of NCDOT’s Complete Streets policy. Streetsblog summed it up nicely after it reviewed a 2018 NCDOT report stating that nearly 10 years after its adoption, the application of Complete Streets within NCDOT was non-existent. The report states: 

• “…the policy is written more as an advisory document and does not include enforcement measures and language needed for implementation. A sentiment echoed in multiple external interviews was that Complete Streets elements are typically viewed as an enhancement, as opposed to a necessary component, of a project.” (page 8 of the PDF file)
• NCDOT staff interviewed for the report said the “rarely, if ever,consult the Complete Streets Design and Planning Guidelines for design standards.” 

The result in North Carolina since NCDOT passed its Complete Streets policy: Rates of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths have increased dramatically and NCDOT’s lack of implementation of its policy led to more than two, full five-year cycles of Statewide Transportation Improvement Program projects lacking safe engineering for vulnerable road users. 

North Carolina’s story isn’t much different than what we are seeing in many other state and local agencies: So-called Complete Streets “policies” are mostly resolutions, not ordinances, that contain few if any compulsory clauses or dedication of funding. 

Just another bucket of coal left under the tree. 

Vision Zero
I’m this/close to giving up on Vision Zero in the United States. I feel that way because the term has already been bastardized by the traffic safety offices of state DOTs.

Elected officials and the public are confused when you try to bring up what real Vision Zero means. They think it’s a traffic safety education campaign sprinkled with some focused law enforcement. They are socially engineered by state DOTs to think that way. 

Road to Zero. Toward Zero Deaths. This is how national organizations like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its partners have diluted Vision Zero before it ever had a chance to emerge. They still seem to insist that perfecting human behavior will get us to zero traffic deaths. 

An Alaska DOT engineer, when I brought up the topic at a 2017 conference, challenged me when I said Vision Zero was a design-focused endeavor. He asserted it was based on education and enforcement. My response was this: “Engineering influences 100% of a road’s users 100% of the time. Education and enforcement may not reach any of a road’s users and those efforts, even when well-funded, are sporadic at best.” 

The state DOT twitter handles for Zero-whatever-they-want-to-call-it reflect their lack of perspective. Explore them a little bit. 

• Utah DOT: @ZeroFatalities
• Iowa DOT: @ZeroIowa
• Nevada DOT: @DriveSafeNV
• North Carolina DOT: @NCVisionZero

Those of you in San Francisco or New York City or Boston or Portland or Seattle may disagree. There are certainly some aspects of what those cities are doing that reflect a true safe systems approach to Vision Zero. They take engineering seriously on many accounts. I wish they were the national model and the national voice through AASHTO, NHTSA, and FHWA. My only real hope is the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). They are partnering with the Vision Zero Network and the speed management class they led at the Vision Zero Cities conference was outstanding. 

The problem for the rest of the country is so many small- and medium-sized cities look to their state DOT for guidance, policy, and design standards. “They’re the experts, so let’s do what they do.” The smaller cities don’t have the budgets to develop their own methods for properly incorporating a Vision Zero approach to engineering. They take whatever the state DOT feeds them. Many even recruit state DOT lifers to come finish out their careers within a city transportation department. 

I’ll reserve final judgment for a couple more years. For 18 years I’ve waited for the right DOT to flip the right switch to light the way. 

Hurry it up, Clark. I’m freezing my baguettes off.

Previous Posts in the 12 Days of Safety Myths Series

On the 7th day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…The Nearest Crosswalk!

On the 6th Day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…AASHTO Standards!

On the 5th day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…5-stage crossings!

On the 4th day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…Shared responsibility!

On the 3rd day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…Lifesaving tchotchkes!

On the 2nd Day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…Magical force field paint!

On the 1st day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me….bright, reflective vests!

The 12 Days of Safety Myths
December 17, 2018
By Don Kostelec

“Just go to the nearest crosswalk.”

Seems simple enough, eh? Pedestrians, just go to the nearest crosswalk and cross there.

How many times have you heard that from a traffic safety campaign or a law enforcement agency? It’s as if they all have a NHTSA app to give them a pedestrian safety catch phrase of the day.

If you quiz highway agencies or law enforcement on it their response is usually “We’re just reminding people of the law.”

True. But these agencies never bother to look at the law in a historical context. They never examine how traffic engineers have designed roads to take advantage of their understanding of this law to promote greater dominance of motorists on the streets. They never account for the value of the pedestrian’s time despite spending millions on corridor studies to do value of time analyses for motorists. From my experience, most of the agency personnel spouting these messages really mean to go to the nearest signalized (or controlled) crosswalk.

One of my favorite TV news personalities is Stanley Roberts. He worked for a long time in San Francisco doing spots called “People Behaving Badly,” where he routinely chronicles motorists failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, especially unmarked ones. He recently moved to Phoenix where it appears he’s having a blast.

A December 13, 2018 piece by Roberts was posted on AZFamily.com. His lede is:

• “In Arizona, sometimes the nearest crosswalk can be a quarter mile away, which begs the question: Does the state or city really expect someone to walk a quarter mile or more just to legally cross the street?”

History
The prevailing laws on crosswalk use in the United States emerged in the 1920s and 1930s as motordom began its vicious public relations campaign to clear the way for automobiles to dominate the streets. They created campaigns using term “jaywalking” (a “jay” being a hick or a rube who didn’t know how to cross streets among an abundance of cars) and related laws as a way to publicly shame pedestrians for not crossing the streets the way they had done for centuries.

After all, there was a new kid on the block–the automobile–and they were determined to establish its dominance over the streets. They enlisted a new profession called “traffic engineers” to do part of the deed for them, all in the name of efficiency. This history of motordom taking control of the streets and relegated people who walk to second class road users is well-chronicled in Peter Norton’s book Fighting Traffic.

These efforts, which Norton headlined as “Organized Ridicule,” can be summed up what Norton summarizes from the Automobile Club of Southern California: It is not particularly difficult to sell pedestrian control to a population which is motor-minded.

The laws put in place to force pedestrians to make more orderly crossings of the street led to the definition of the crosswalk, which is generally defined as any street corner or intersection. Today, those crosswalks are either marked (include some type of striping across the road) or unmarked (an assumed crosswalk that exists at every intersection and across every leg at that intersection. By law, pedestrians have the same right-of-way in a marked and unmarked crosswalk.

Additional laws to regulate pedestrians at traffic signals became more prevalent as that technology was deployed. Cross only when your parallel vehicle movement has the green. Pedestrian-specific signals emerged much later and gave pedestrians the WALK, flashing DON’T WALK, and solid DON’T WALK signals we’re all familiar with today.

Putting it in 1930s Street Context
Let’s strip away from the overt campaigning by motordom for a second and consider what the command of “just go to the nearest crosswalk” meant when walking about cities of the 1920s and 1930s. In researching the onset of these laws where I live in Idaho, we found that cities were adopting pedestrian-related ordinances in this timeframe; the State of Idaho didn’t follow with state laws until the 1950s.

I located a map of the City of Boise from the early 1940s through the River Street Digital History Project, which would be from the approximate time the laws requiring pedestrians to cross at crosswalks were adopted.

In scanning the high resolution version I was seeking what the longest block length was in Boise at this time. It’s 600 feet long, near the intersection of Fairview Avenue and 22nd Street. There’s a hotel on the site today. If a pedestrian came out of a building at the mid-block it would mean a 300-foot walk in either direction to get to a crosswalk, or 85 seconds. Most blocks in Boise’s city limits at this time were 300 to 350 feet, meaning a 45-second walk from a mid-block location to the nearest corner. To me, those aren’t unreasonable expectations placed upon a person who is walking.

The street context at the time was also notably different than today. Vehicle speeds were not as high. In researching Utah law, I found that land use dictated speed limits in Utah’s Traffic Rules and Regulations, 1933. Essentially, no roadway had a speed limit above 25 mph within residential or business districts (almost an entire city, not counting industrial areas).

Speed limits based on land use! Imagine that.

Pulling it all together: Pedestrians didn’t have to walk that far to find a crosswalk to use in the cities of the 1930s. They weren’t exposed to high vehicle speeds like today. There weren’t as many travel lanes at the time since traffic volumes were low.

Today’s Street Context
Traffic engineers are guilty of taking advantage of these laws and driving the misguided message common to their own agency’s traffic safety campaigns. They clearly interpret “just go to the nearest crosswalk” to mean the nearest controlled crosswalk. They hate designing frequent controlled crossings for pedestrians because it might mess up the precious traffic flow that they’ve been seeking ever since the creation of their profession.

Just four miles west of that Fairview and 22nd Street intersection in Boise is a section of State Highway 44 (or Glenwood Avenue) that has a series of signs (image at right) intent on restricting pedestrians from crossing except at controlled intersections.

(Aside: I’m 100% certain the engineers at the Idaho Transportation Department who approved these signs don’t understand the definition of an unmarked crosswalk. There are two “public” streets that access Glenwood on the east side between the controlled intersections of Chinden Boulevard and Marigold. They are public streets managed by Ada County as part of their fairgrounds complex.) 

If a pedestrian dutifully followed the directions as dictated by the Idaho Transportation Department they would find there is a 3,700-foot gap between signalized intersections at Chinden Boulevard on the south and Marigold Avenue on the north. That’s 500 seconds of walking time (!!!!!!) for a pedestrian who comes out mid-block in this stretch hoping to cross the street.

If we accounted for pedestrian delay the same way agencies like ITD account for vehicle delay, the equivalent to forcing a pedestrian to the nearest controlled intersection in this situation is like forcing a motorist to drive five miles up the road to make a u-turn just to cross the street. Can you imagine the outcry if they exerted that much control over motorist access on a surface street? Yet, it’s perfectly acceptable for them to do this to pedestrians.

Pedestrians: Design Guidance is on Your Side! 
Here’s the dirty secret the traffic engineers don’t want you to know:

• AASHTO and the Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE) support pedestrians having more opportunities to cross a street.

The AASHTO Guide for the Planning, Design, and Operations of Pedestrian Facilities might be your greatest gift from Santa. Chapter 3 on Pedestrian Facility Design includes a section on “Marked Crosswalks” (page 81; emphasis added):

• “Assumptions–Assume that pedestrians want and need safe access to all destinations that are accessible to motorists…
• “Frequency–Pedestrian must be able to cross streets and highways at regular intervals. Unlike motor vehicles, pedestrians cannot be expected to go a quarter mile or more out of their way to take advantage of a controlled intersection.”

In the 6th Day of Safety Myths I covered the AASHTO Green Book and how it’s seen as the predominant guidance for engineers. The Green Book references the AASHTO Guide for the Planning, Design, and Operations of Pedestrian Facilities at least 30 times in its more than 1,000 pages. So, AASHTO clearly see this specific guidance document on pedestrians as valid guidance for those using the Green Book.

The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), a much more enlightened group of engineers than those who develop AASHTO guidance, take the need for more frequent pedestrian crossings a step beyond AASHTO. ITE’s Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach has the following language:

• “Pedestrian facilities should be spaced so block lengths in less dense areas (suburban or general urban) do not exceed 600 feet (preferably 200 to 400 feet) and relatively direct routes are available.” (page 32)
• “In the densest urban areas (urban centers and urban cores), block length should not exceed 400 feet (preferably 200 to 300 feet) to support higher densities and pedestrian activity.
• “Generally, however, consider providing a marked midblock crossing when protected intersection crossings are spaced greater than 400 feet or so that crosswalks are located no greater than 200 to 300 feet apart in high pedestrian volume locations, and meet the criteria below.” (page 153)

The Last Hurdle: MUTCD and Liability
There you have it! The two leading transportation engineering organizations in the United States support greater density in pedestrian crossings. What’s the problem with your local traffic engineers?

That’s where it gets sticky and slightly harder to overcome their stubbornness. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), unlike the AASHTO Green Book, has several elements that are truly deemed “standards,” or compulsory elements. The word “shall” is used in many instances in the MUTCD, including the section on signal warrants contained in Section 4C of MUTCD:

• “An engineering study of traffic conditions, pedestrian characteristics, and physical characteristics of the location shall be performed to determine whether installation of a traffic control signal is justified at a particular location.”

Section 4C.05 Warrant 4, Pedestrian Volume, includes “shall” statements related to pedestrian volumes.

While an engineer’s concerns over liability in approving such a crossing in the absence of these values is valid on the surface, they still have the flexibility of their own engineering judgment to approve crossings in the absence of these warrants being met. Part 1A of MUTCD states:

• “Thus, while this Manual provides Standards, Guidance, and Options for design and applications of traffic control devices, this Manual should not be considered a substitute for engineering judgment. Engineering judgment should be exercised in the selection and application of traffic control devices, as well as in the location and design of roads and streets that the devices complement.”

In my work with engineers who have a modern perspective, they tend to take their duty of engineering judgment seriously. They don’t flippantly approve more frequent pedestrian crossings, but they do take into account factors such as land use, gaps between crossings, and presence of things like schools, parks, senior center, transit stops, and shopping areas.

It was drilled into my head as a young project designer who was managing engineering projects alongside a licensed engineer that we must document the times in which we used engineering judgment to deviate from the things like the “shall” statements of MUTCD. We were to put a memo in the project file explaining how we reached that decision and the engineer of record was to sign them.

This procedure is affirmed in in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Legal Research Digest #63: EFFECT OF MUTCD ON TORT LIABILITY OF GOVERNMENT
TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES, specifically page 25: “MUTCD is not a substitute for engineering judgment.”

NCHRP’s Legal Research Digest #57 TORT LIABILITY DEFENSE PRACTICES FOR DESIGN FLEXIBILITY notes on page 13: “The MUTCD and other references are guidelines, not cookbooks.”

 

 

 

The 12 Days of Safety Myths
December 15, 2018
by Don Kostelec

Standard, /ˈstandərd/, noun:  a required or agreed level of quality or attainment.

Required level? Or agreed level? That’s a big difference in how we interpret what exactly a standard consists of in the street design realm.

“AASHTO standards” is a phrase used all the time when transportation agencies write their reports, produce their public meeting materials, and ultimately use the term “standards” as a way to deny safer engineering for people who walk and bike.

AASHTO–the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials–is essentially the national organization of state DOTs. All 50 state DOT executive directors serve on AASHTO’s Board of Directors. AASHTO is funded by them. State DOT engineers serve on many AASHTO committees and develop AASHTO design standards guidance.

AASHTO produces many engineering publications, most notably their “Green Book.” The Green Book’s formal title is A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets. AASHTO, whose Board of Directors is comprised of all of the directors of the 50 state DOTS, just published the 7th edition of its Green Book .

When you hear someone refer to “AASHTO standards,” they are most likely referring to the Green Book. To the layperson interacting with a transportation engineer the use of the term “standards” can be intimidating. Politicians with limited knowledge of transportation are even more reluctant to question something if an engineer says it’s a “standard.”

Nearly everyone, especially the engineers, use the definition of standard that aligns more with it being a “requirement” rather than an agreed to level of treatment. Pitching elements of the Green Book as a requirement allows engineers to deflect questions about their decisions. On the contrary, if they used the term “standard” to mean something mutually agreed upon, that would open up the design to a true community-based approach.

But the interesting part is this: Not even AASHTO refers to its Green Book as a standard. It’s guidance. The Preface of the Green Book’s 7th edition includes the following paragraph (emphasis added):

• “A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets provides geometric design guidance based on established practices that are supplemented by recent research. This document is intended as a comprehensive reference manual to assist in administrative, planning, and educational efforts pertaining to design formulation. This policy is not intended to be a prescriptive design manual that supersedes engineering judgment by the knowledgeable design professional.”

Guidance. Reference. Not intended to be prescriptive. Hmm. That’s not what your engineer told you, eh?

You should print that paragraph, laminate it, and put it in your wallet to carry to project meetings for the inevitable moment when the engineers act as if their understanding of the  Green Book is that it is some sacred text.

The Preface also states:

• “Designers should recognize the joint use of transportation corridors by motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, public transit, and freight vehicles. Designers are encouraged to consider not only vehicle movement, but also movement of people, distribution of goods, and provision of essential services.”

Shall we? We must! 
If something was a true “standard” the sense that it is required it would stand to reason that a publication like the Green Book would contain many sections that use the word “shall” or  “must.” Those two terms are traditionally viewed as making an action compulsory. “Shall” is the word normally used in transportation policy to denote a mandatory element.

The PDF file of the Green Book is 1,048 pages long. Below are the results of a search for the word “shall” in that PDF. It doesn’t appear among the 1,048 pages.

The word “must” is, however, used in the Green Book. Section 1.8 is about Design Flexibility. It states:

• “The word ‘must’ is used in this policy only when specific design criteria or practices are a legal requirement…For example, ‘must’ is used to describe practices related to the development of pedestrian facilities that are accessible to an useable by individuals with disabilities.”
  

  More Green Book gold from our friends at Kentucky’s DOT.

It gets better.

That same paragraph goes on to say:

• “(T)he design criteria presented in this policy are not fixed requirements, but rather are guidelines that provide a starting point for the exercise of design flexibility.”

Laminate that, too!

The fact is the design parameters where active transportation interests tend to ask for flexibility are those where the AASHTO Green Book provides a set of ranges for design dimensions. Frankly, it’s not all that technical when you start to read through it.

For example, Section 7.3.3.2 addresses Lane Widths on Urban Arterials (page 601 of the 1,048-page PDF file, if you’re keeping score at home). A common request from active transportation interests is travel lanes narrower than 14-feet or 12-feet wide in order to provide room for bicycle lanes or sidewalks within a constrained right of way footprint. How many times have you had that request refused. Here’s what The Green Book says:

• “Lane widths on through-travel lanes may vary from 10 to 12 ft. Lane widths of 10 ft may be used in more constrained areas where truck and bus volumes are relatively low and speeds are less than 35 mph. Lane widths of 11 ft are used quite extensively for urban arterial street designs. The 12-ft lane widths are desirable, where practical, on high-speed, free-flowing, principal arterials.”

Nothing, NOTHING, about that is as prescriptive as some engineers will try to tell you when denying your request for narrower lanes.

Dear AASHTO: Make it free! Make it public!
Want a PDF copy of the Green Book? It’ll cost you $310. A paperback is $388.

AASHTO’s other publications and costs are:

• Guide for the Planning, Design and Operation of of Pedestrian Facilities (2004): $115 PDF, $143 paperback.
• Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (2012): $162 PDF, $203 paperback.
• A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design (2004): $27 PDF, $34.

It’s understandable that costs for printing a book would merit charging for it. But with PDFs there’s no reason these publicly-funded documents should be kept under lock and key. My PDF version of The Green Book is password protected and I must use my AASHTO login to access it.

Your local transportation department probably has copies of it. They might let you borrow it. If you’re part of an advocacy organization, try a fundraiser to purchase copies of these guide books. You’ll put them to good use and the engineers hate nothing more than when you come to a meeting with a hard copy of one of these guides.

Another approach is checking your library to see if it has a copy of the Green Book or any other publications. If not, suggest they get copies for their reference library. You may have to make photocopies of it to take to meetings, but it would be a cheaper way to make it accessible.

After all, the development of the AASHTO Green Book is paid for by your tax dollars. AASHTO is floated by state DOTs and the United States Department of Transportation. State DOTs are the AASHTO biggest customer, contracting with them to do training and bridge safety work.

The bulk of AASHTO’s revenue ($62 million of $74 million in total revenue) comes from what their audit report calls “Technical service fees and product revenue.” That has to be derived largely from state DOT contracting for their efforts. AASHTO reported $3.5 million in publication sales revenue. Membership dues netted them $2.7 million.

AASHTO’s 2017 Audited Fianancial Statement shows they received more than $9 million from USDOT that year, including nearly $1 million in federal funds for general AASHTO “Operations Support Activity.”

Another interesting find is AASHTO’s 2013 Tax Form 990, which revealed that their Executive Director had a salary of $332,000 for working only 37 hours a week that year. AASHTO’s Director of Policy and Director of Intermodal Activities each made more than $200,000. Their Director of Publications made $144,000. Five other AASHTO staff members made more than $150,000 in salary in 2013.

(Side note: AASHTO’s Audited Financial Statment from June 2017 revealed what’s called a “Control Deficiency.” According to the accounting firm that did the audit, AASHTO has a “lack of knowledge regarding the new requirements” for reporting the scheduled expenditure of federal funds. The report notes AASHTO failed to meet federal reporting requirements. They failed to meet deadlines for quarterly reports on expenditure of federal funds. LOL. You’d think an agency run by other agencies that manage billions of dollars in federal funds would know how to report on the use of federal funds.  And, yes, I’m the nerd who reads Audited Financial Statements of highway agencies! Back to the Green Book…) 

Below are two pages from The Green Book. They list the individual state DOT representatives who contributed to development of this guidance.