Work Zone Traffic Control Policy Update - Project Background

Significant investment is made in the City of Boulder to redevelop private land and reconstruct and maintain public infrastructure. Much of this is done, in part, to improve our quality of life and travel mobility, yet public right-of-way transportation and mobility impacts that many construction projects have are a concern for this community.  Maintaining safe and efficient travel mobility during construction operations ensures continuity and safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, mass transit and motorists.

In response to community and Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) concerns, the City of Boulder Public Works Transportation Division and the Planning & Development Services (P&DS) Department initiated this effort. The aim is to develop work zone traffic control policies that are reasonable in achieving a balance between environmental, financial and social impacts of right-of-way closures and associated mitigation. Agreement of this balance and consensus among stakeholders will assist in seeing that these policies are adhered to and enforced.

In considering differing levels of impact to pedestrians, bicyclists, transit and motorists that is reasonable, the following factors were considered:

1. Safety for all modes of travel in the public right-of-way;
2. Efficiency and mobility for all modes of travel in the public right-of-way;
3. Financial costs involved with projects and their related work zone traffic control; and
4. Potential impacts to surrounding land use from loss of parking or diverted traffic.

A fundamental concept of the changes being proposed is the recognition that work zone traffic control impacts need to be considered not only by the project manager and/or right-of-way inspector responsible for the closure, but also by the city traffic engineer to ensure that the aforementioned factors are appropriately balanced towards the most reasonable outcome. Logistically, the duties of the city traffic engineer are delegated to staff from transportation planning and operations, but for the remainder of this project shall be designated as the city Traffic Engineer. Towards this end, the proposed changes develop a categorization of work zone traffic control impacts as being either standard or non-standard public right-of-way closures. The proposal will define these categories and the process required for review and approval of these closures.

Standard closures represent common closure conditions with limited impacts and a standard mitigation approach that would be unlikely to change in consultation with the city traffic engineer. Impacts that meet the criteria of a standard closure afford the project manager or right-of-way inspector the authority to approve and implement a method of handling traffic (MHT) without any consultation with the city traffic engineer.

Those that are defined as non-standard represent significant potential impacts and produce a need to balance a variety of factors to determine the more reasonable and balanced approach to managing the impacts of the closure. The proposal would stipulate that non-standard closures require consultation with the city traffic engineer. Examples of non-standard closures include:

• Any complete road closure, requiring diversion of traffic to adjacent roadways
• Any closure which occurs during peak hours of traffic - prior to 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m.
• Any sidewalk closure other than a sidewalk on a local roadway, not in the Central Area General Improvement District (CAGID) or Univeristy Hill General Improvement District (UHGID) boundaries
• Any closure of a designated multi-use path

Projects that propose the closure of a multi-use path would need to submit a plan that considers the cost and benefits of detour options. Additionally, projects that propose a closure involving a detour for any type of facility must develop and execute a detour sign and marking plan as part of the temporary traffic control (TTC) plan. In addition, there will be a specific TTC plan diagram provided, which will describe the signing needed for closing a bicycle lane in the city and for temporarily designating a sidewalk as a multi-use path. These plans will augment the existing diagrams provided for TTC plans in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). 

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Last Updated on Friday, 20 February 2009 08:46