A Welcome Step Forward: Our Team on the New MUTCD
After a wait of more than 10 years, the Federal Highway Administration released the 11th Edition of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) on December 19, 2023, which became effective on January 18, 2024. The MUTCD establishes “uniform national criteria for the use of traffic control devices that meet the needs and expectancy of road users on all streets, highways, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and site roadways open to public travel.” It constitutes one of the few street design standards in the United States enforced through federal law. As such, the MUTCD is an essential guide that helps shape our built environment in powerful ways.
So much has changed since the last edition in 2009. The generational needs and opportunities that face our country and world—decarbonizing transportation, eliminating traffic crash deaths and serious injuries, expanding healthy and affordable mobility options, and righting past injustices while safeguarding against future ones—are urgent and require a concerted, nationwide response. If you’re like us, you were waiting with bated breath for this update!
The 11th Edition of the MUTCD is a big step forward, but we need a giant leap. The update is a testament to the engineers, planners, advocates, and researchers who have creatively and rigorously adapted international best practices to the US context and created designs whole cloth to design great, safe streets for everyone. Through requests for experimentation and interim approvals, our toolkit has been greatly expanded, enabling us to serve more users better. The new MUTCD codifies these innovations for all to use. It is also more flexible: creating more room for the needs of people outside of cars, harmonizing streets with surrounding land uses, and encouraging designers to be creative as well as diligent.
While this edition gives us greater ability to refocus our streets around people, it doesn’t compel us to; that is where work remains to be done. The ambitious goals of the National Roadway Safety Strategy and the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization are only reflected in the MUTCD, not embedded in it. While the MUTCD is not, on its face, a policy document, it has shaped policy outcomes for decades. We look forward to USDOT leveraging the full power of the MUTCD to achieve our ambitious goals in future updates.
Here are some of the highlights that we are celebrating and can’t wait to put into practice in communities across the country:
Eric Hanss: Taking a Safe System approach to setting speed limits
I’m celebrating significant updates to "Speed Limit Sign (R2-1)." Why? For too long the language in this section has recommended that the most reckless drivers should determine our speed limits, even in dense urban contexts where speeds need to be low for safety, economic vibrancy, and peace and quiet.
This has been replaced with a requirement that context, not bad behavior, shall be considered. Safe streets advocates, families who have lost loved ones in crashes, and professionals have been doggedly calling for these and other changes for years. I hope we all can celebrate their accomplishment and commit to continuing the work of ditching the 85th percentile rule-of-thumb once and for all.
Eric Hanss is an Associate at Sam Schwartz, leading Vision Zero and Safe Streets & Roads for All Action Plans and implementing projects and policies that place people walking and rolling first.
Kelly McGuinness: Paving the way for a people-centric approach to road design—with a splash of color!
Some of my favorite updates in the MUTCD 11th edition are the official standards for people-forward tools, such as colored pavement, colored sidewalk extensions, and crosswalk markings—including guidance on suiting these applications to address the needs of vulnerable road users and people with disabilities.
While some of these elements have long been commonplace in my hometown of New York City, the latest guidance formally integrates treatments that were previously under Interim Approval. This includes the use of green-colored pavement for bicycle lanes and red-colored pavement for transit lanes (Section 3H), establishing greater uniformity and more widespread adoption of these tools moving forward. Section 3C clarifies a requirement for crosswalk markings at non-intersection locations, helping alert road users of a designated pedestrian crossing point and improving safety. Section 3J, besides providing guidance on how they should be designed, formally renames ‘curb extensions’ to ‘sidewalk extensions’ placing people first and highlighting how these spaces are actually used.
By solidifying these guidelines, the new MUTCD clears a path for us to reclaim road space from private vehicles, no matter where we’re working, and brings us one step closer to the USDOT's vision of a secure, sustainable, and fair transportation system.
Kelly McGuinness is a Planner at Sam Schwartz whose projects focus on creating safe, livable, and equitable streets.
Chris Milner: Implementing separated bikeways using MUTCD standards
I’m excited to utilize standardization of buffer-separated and separated bicycle facilities in the 11th Edition. For many years, protected bikeway design has been shaped by NACTO guides and an assortment of documents by various entities. Section 9E now provides a variety of example markings and guidance for several scenarios.
Having the backing of the MUTCD will be a game changer for many of our clients who look to it as their sounding board to ensure uniformity of traffic control devices across their transportation system. The termination of Interim Approvals for many treatments paired with the additional guidance will eliminate implementation hurdles for several projects currently in final design. I’m thrilled to be able to advance safe and comfortable bikeways without having to go through significant design variance processes.
Chris Milner is a Transportation Engineer at TYLin leading the active transportation design team across the Southwest. He has a passion for solving mobility challenges and integrating active modes of transportation into designs to enhance how people, place, and communities connect.
Gina Showers: Two wheels up for new bicycle signage
Chicago, IL: Two-stage turn box at Independence Boulevard and Harrison Street.
The newest edition of the MUTCD contains further instruction on signage for bicycle facilities that will help guide all users to safely use the street.
R9-23 and D11-20 Left Turn and Turn Box series: We often see bike boxes and two-stage turn boxes blocked by drivers ignoring pavement markings or who may be unaware of their purpose. Additional signage on the approach and at turn boxes will help reinforce that these spaces are designated for turning cyclists.
D11-10 – Wayfinding series: Previously, all distances displayed on bicycle wayfinding signs were rounded to the nearest quarter mile. The new edition requires that distances shorter than a quarter of a mile be displayed in feet and rounded to the nearest 50 feet.
W16-21P – 2-Way Bicycle Cross Traffic: This new sign indicates both two-way bike lanes and contraflow lanes. We’ve been designing more contraflow bike lanes in Chicago in recent years, and this signage will alert roadway users on cross streets of two-way bike traffic.
These are just some examples of welcome changes in the 11th Edition; others include a new version of R9-20 – Bicycles Allowed Use of Full Lane and guidance on signage at mixing zones.
Gina Showers is a Transportation Engineer and TYLin’s In-House Project Manager for the Chicago Department of Transportation’s Bikeways program. She is devoted to creating safe, equitable, and multimodal transportation networks for communities.
Stacey Meekins: Signal (and beacon) updates change bicycle and pedestrian travel for the better
Several changes to traffic control rules will enable practitioners to better accommodate people traveling on bike or on foot. Bicycle Signal Faces and Rectangular Rapid Flash Beacons (RRFBs) both graduated from interim status to final rule. While these have been available for use through the interim approval status, having them incorporated into the MUTCD gives agencies more guidance and confidence in using these tools.
In addition, guidance was added to signalized intersections that pedestrian signals should be used at all signals where crosswalks are marked. “Shall” statements govern pedestrian signals under certain conditions (such as at schools or where leading pedestrian intervals are used). Signal warrants have also been modified to include crash history, broadening the analysis beyond traffic considerations.
Despite these advancements, I hope to see even more progress in future editions. Bicycle signal heads could have more flexibility in their application, for instance, and signal language could be strengthened to mandate pedestrian signals at all signalized locations. All in all, though, we are moving in the right direction.
Stacey Meekins is a Principal and National Director of Planning for Sam Schwartz. She has focused her career on helping communities implement solutions to make their transportation systems more inclusive; establishing safer, more inviting environments that promote and empower walking and bicycling as integral modes of transportation
Matt Orenchuk: New guidance for automated signals and markings will help transit operators
The future of transit in the US is an automated one. Much of our recent transit planning work considers how we can incorporate automated transit vehicles into different operating environments. Our work in this area varies: sometimes it is a connected and automated corridor, other times automated on-demand service operating in a defined service area. One thing that we know for sure, however, is that much of the US is not yet prepared for automated operations.
Thus, the new Part 5-Traffic Control Device Considerations for Automated Vehicles is a welcome development because it gives guidance to local communities on how to develop traffic control systems for automated operations. I am particularly heartened by Section 5B, which gives specific provisions for traffic signals, markings, and signs. Less talking and more doing.
As stewards of the public trust (and the public’s money), transit agencies are typically reluctant to invest in new technology until they are certain it can be deployed effectively. This is why we have seen many more advancements in automated transit from private companies. The updated MUTCD gives specific design guidance that communities can adopt widely. Once that happens, it will give transit providers the confidence to deploy automated service and fully realize its potential.
Matt Orenchuk is a Principal and Transit and Rail Practice Leader for Sam Schwartz. He specializes in bus and rail operations planning, corridor planning, and long range and strategic planning. He is motivated to improve quality of life for transit riders by planning and delivering service improvements.
Dan Bhaumik: Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons—cementing continued use of a proven safety countermeasure
A Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon (RRFB)
So much of traffic control is based on technology, and with that innovation comes questions of ownership. That’s why Chapter 4L “Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons,” or RRFBs, is so exciting. Though their development predates the 2009 version of the MUTCD, their application has been inconsistent due to issues of patent law and the responsibility municipalities take on when using novel traffic safety solutions.
Over the past decade (and more), RRFB’s have been found to be consistently effective safety countermeasures, first deployed in small pilot projects, then by various DOTs over the past several years, and finally gaining MUTCD interim approval in March 2018. Now, this highly effective countermeasure is comprehensively detailed in a document that all infrastructure owners can rely upon.
The creator of RRFBs, Richard Jones, has called cars “moving soundproof rooms” and created the RRFB to visually disrupt that comfort for the sake of the safety of all users. Being able to use MUTCD’s 11th Edition to prioritize safety is critical at a time when traffic fatalities and serious injuries are increasing across North America.
Dan Bhaumik is a transportation engineer for Sam Schwartz. He specializes in traffic safety and currently assists NJDOT on-site as a safety reviewer for state- and federally funded roadway projects in New Jersey.
Siddharth Shah: Counter-flow bike lanes are now mainstream
Chicago, IL: Counter-flow bicycle lane installed on W. Wrightwood Ave in 2021
Installing counter-flow bicycle lanes, enabling people biking to travel in the opposite direction on a one-way street, is an elegant tool to plug gaps within a bike network. While cities in the US have been using this design for over a decade, I'm excited to see the 11th Edition of MUTCD acknowledge the use of counter-flow bicycle lanes and provide design guidance in Section 9E.08.
Many streets with counter-flow bicycle lanes are in residential neighborhoods with low traffic volumes. Because of their residential nature, they will likely have parking on both sides of the street. In the Notice of Proposed Amendments (NPA), the proposed update allowed counter-flow lanes next to on-street parallel parking, which could have severely impacted the use of counter-flow bicycle lanes as a low-impact design strategy. During the public comment period, numerous respondents discouraged USDOT from proposing such restrictions.
We analyzed the crash data of every street with existing contra-flow bike lanes next to parking lanes in Chicago and didn't find any significant negative safety impacts. I'm pleased USDOT considered the public comments and updated the language for installing counter-flow bicycle lanes next to parking from "shall not" to the advisory of "should not". Ultimately, counter-flow bicycle lanes will help cities build low-stress bike networks and allow shorter and more direct routes for people using active transportation.
Siddharth Shah is a senior transportation planner at Sam Schwartz. As an in-house consultant for the Chicago Department of Transportation, he leads Vision Zero data analysis and pedestrian safety project implementation.