Practical Highway Design Solutions (2013)

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7 Survey of PracticeS A questionnaire was sent to all state DOTs using the member- ship of AASHTO’s Subcommittee on Design, primarily to identify those states that have a Practical Design policy. The questionnaire posed the following questions: 1. Does your state have a formal or informal policy related to Practical Design, Practical Solutions, or some other similar project development or design philosophy? 2. If yes, explain or provide a link to any documents on your website or send to the consultant. 3. If no, is your state considering developing a policy? 4. If the answer to question 3 is yes, what information would be useful to your state in either developing or expanding upon a Practical Design policy? 5. If the answer to question 1 is yes, would your state be willing to be interviewed by the consultant? The survey document is provided as Appendix A. The survey achieved an 82% response rate, with 41 of 50 states responding. The results are summarized here. StatuS of StateS regarding a Practical deSign Policy Twenty-nine of the 41 states responded “yes” to this question. The results of question 1 are shown in Appendix B, Table B1 by state. These states can be grouped into two categories: those that have an explicit documented policy labeled as Practical Design, Practical Solutions, or some similar term, and those that referred to a practice they believed to be similar in principle. For the former group, the following six states are included: • Practical Design Missouri, Oregon, Utah • Practical Solution Kentucky, Idaho • Practical Improvements Kansas Missouri was the first state to adopt a formal Practical Design policy, and this label is also used by Oregon and Utah; Kentucky uses Practical Solutions, and Idaho initially used the label Practical Design but now uses Practical Solution. Each of these states provided a guide, manual, or similar document describing their policy; each of which will be discussed in chapter four. Twenty-three states responded “yes” that they have a policy similar in principle to Practical Design and then referred to “similar” practices or policies. Using the comments provided by these 23 states (see Appendix B, Table B1 for the full responses), the following categorization can be made for the “something similar” group: • Refer to resurfacing, restoration, Arkansas, South and rehabilitation (3R) design Carolina, criteria Wyoming • Refer to CSS Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota • Refer to design flexibility Delaware, Indiana, Vermont • Refer to design exceptions Michigan • Refer to CSS, Complete Streets, Massachusetts design exception and 3R • Refer to Road Safety Audits Maryland • Refer to Smart Transportation New Jersey • Informal Practical Design policy Louisiana, Montana, Rhode Island • Design guidelines for each project North Dakota • Minimum design solution New Hampshire, approach Nebraska • Tier design North Carolina • Project Development Policy Virginia • Practical Design policy under Maine development The following are a few of the statements made by the respondents that exemplify how their state follows the prin- ciples of Practical Design: • Arkansas does not have a policy that is designated as practical design. However, for many years we have used the 3R process to achieve practical design on many miles of highway. In 1989, geometric design criteria were established for nonfreeway 3R projects. These design criteria are less than normal design standards; however, it provides a safe and improved facility at a reduced cost. • Colorado DOT (CDOT) has a formal and informal CSS process, which leads to practical designs by incorpo- rating multi-disciplinary (within CDOT and outside) teams to develop solutions. chapter two reSultS of initial Survey of State dePartmentS of tranSPortation

8 • Delaware’s Road Design Manual allows for flexibility within the design standards and for design exceptions when the standards cannot be met. Delaware DOT (DelDOT) does not however have a policy strictly based on Practical Design or Practical Solutions. • [In Maryland] Road Safety Audits are conducted to identify low-cost improvements to enhance the safety of a given facility. Roadway segments with lower safety performance are reviewed by a team of technical experts representing multiple disciplines. • Beginning in 2006, within its VE unit, New Jersey began what was called Smart Solution reviews on all complex, high-dollar projects. The difference between a traditional VE review and this new Smart Solutions approach was that we removed the main goal in the VE process, achieving an equal or better product. Instead, a team of multi-disciplined personnel (similar to a VE team) would focus on solving the original problem that started the project. The goal of the Smart Solutions team was to hone in on the conditions causing the problems. Any substandard condition that was not causing crashes or listed on one of the management systems lists was not improved. We are no longer trying to make everything perfect; we were trying to improve the existing condi- tions. (Pennsylvania, who did not respond to the question- naire, also has a Smart Transportation policy, as was learned from the literature review.) • Louisiana’s program is informal. Our process is similar to Kentucky’s practical solutions. We typically apply these concepts to spot replacement type projects (bridge replacements, spot safety improvements, etc.). • New Hampshire has not developed any specific approach to the fiscal constraint issues, but we have taken a very simplistic solution to design issues, that being do as little as possible while still solving the problem that needs to be addressed (like widening in-kind instead of full-depth reconstruction). We are constructing the least costly alternative in almost all situations. Although this is not a written directive, we make sure we always include a “minimal design solution” as an alternative for consideration. Although these 23 states responded that they do follow a Practical Design approach, because they do not have a formal, documented policy, they were not investigated further. StateS conSidering a Practical deSign Policy Only a few states indicated that they are considering develop- ing a Practical Design policy; these included Alabama, Florida, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin. States that responded that they were not planning to develop a Practical Design pol- icy included Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee. information uSeful in develoPing a Practical deSign Policy The purpose of question 3 was to ascertain what information states that do not yet have a Practical Design policy would like to have about the Practical Design approach. It was intended that the responses would help frame what questions should be posed to those states with a formal policy that might help those states considering adopting or perhaps modifying their policy. The answers from all the states are listed in Table B2 in Appendix B. The types of information sought by the respon- dents are listed here: • Examples of costs and time savings realized using Practical Design. • Lessons learned and current practices. • Goals, objectives, and success measures. • Implementation procedures including documentation. • Obstacles encountered and how they were addressed. • Industry standard for definition of performance-based design, as well as tools and criteria for practicing it. • Need to demonstrate value (compared with consequences) of implementing a formalized policy to obtain manage- ment and public acceptance. • How the consultant community is integrated into the Practical Design process and procedures. • Data on inherent trade-offs of such a policy as this will often result in parameters that fall below AASHTO guidelines. • Specific criteria used to determine when Practical Design is appropriate. • How to encourage project teams to embrace Practical Design rather than view it as another forced policy from the central office. • Safety records for implemented Practical Design projects. • How to address AASHTO minimum design criteria. • Need for more design exceptions. • Reactions by professional engineers to utilizing Practical Design. • How to incorporate the Highway Safety Manual meth- odologies into the project development process. These information needs were used as the basis for the inter- views conducted with the six states identified earlier as having a formal Practical Design policy. The results of those inter- views are included in the profiles of each of six states with a Practical Design policy presented in chapter four.