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Federal resources

Subject: Roadway safety infrastructure
Name: Federal Highway Administration Resource Centers

The Resource Centers (RCs) listed below provide support and advice to the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) division offices so they in turn can do a better job of delivering programs to state Departments of Transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, and other partners and customers. The RCs serve as central locations for technical and program specialists who provide technical, process, and program assistance. The RCs develop and present training, support technology transfer activities, and assist with intermodal and interagency coordination.

Subject: Safety-roadway
Name: FHWA Headquarters and Division Offices

The Office of Safety at FHWA Headquarters in Washington, DC, provides information on red light running, pedestrian and bicycle safety, road safety audits, and safety management systems to community leaders.

Federal Highway Administration
Office of Safety
400 7th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590
(202) 366-2288
safety.fhwa.dot.gov

FHWA's Division Offices support and provide technical assistance to state and local highway safety agencies. Division Offices are located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. You can contact the Division Administrators through FHWA's website, www.fhwa.dot.gov.

Subject: Traffic safety issues
Name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Regional
Offices

NHTSA has 10 regional offices that work on the agency's mission to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic costs. Each regional office provides numerous services to the states and other public and private sector customers. They promote legislation, administer the Agency's grant programs, assist in coalition building, and deliver training and technical assistance. The Office of Communications and Outreach at NHTSA Headquarters can be helpful to community leaders. It can be reached at:

NHTSA
Office of Communications and Outreach
U.S. Department of Transportation
400 7th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590
(202) 366-9294
www.nhtsa.dot.gov

NHTSA has 10 regional offices which serve all 50 states, the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Marianas and the Tribal Indian Nations. You can contact the regional offices through NHTSA's website, www.nhtsa.dot.gov.

Subject: Roadway and community safety
Name: NHTSA's Safe Communities Program

More than 769 jurisdictions now participate in NHTSA's Safe Communities Program. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico are host to these programs. The primary goal of Safe Communities is to reduce transportation-related injuries through community leadership, citizen involvement, and a multidisciplinary intermodal approach to key injury problems. The American Public Health Association and the American Medical Association are Safe Community partners.

Safe Communities obtain assistance through NHTSA's Safe Communities Service Center, an information and technical assistance resource that advances the goals of Safe Communities nationwide. Specifically, the Center

• Links community coalitions directly to providers who can address specific needs.
• Identifies a national network of Safe Community practitioners.
• Markets best practices.
• Facilitates new partnerships.
• Promotes citizen involvement.
• Produces a bimonthly newsletter.

Safe Communities Service Center
c/o NHTSA Region VI
819 Taylor Street, Room 8A38
Fort Worth, TX 76102-6177
(817) 978-3653
(817) 978-8339 Fax
www.nhtsa.dot.gov/safecommunities

Subject: Safety on local, rural, and tribal streets and roads
Name: Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Centers

The LTAP centers form a nationwide network that provides state-of-the-art technical assistance to urban, rural, and suburban local and tribal governments. The centers are located in all states, Puerto Rico, and five tribal communities.

They are generally housed at colleges, universities, or state Departments of Transportation. Community leaders can access LTAP's training courses, publications, video and print libraries, and technologies by contacting their states' LTAP centers. For a list of LTAP centers, visit the website of the LTAP Clearinghouse at www.ltap2.org.

LTAP centers provide the most direct, hands-on method that FHWA and its partners have for moving innovative transportation technologies out of the lab, off the shelf, and into the hands of the people who maintain local, rural, and tribal streets and roads.² Training is at the heart of all LTAP centers. Many offer courses on winter maintenance, work zone traffic control, and pedestrian safety, as well as workshops on the maintenance of gravel roads. Specifically, they

• Publish quarterly newsletters.
• Serve as clearinghouses for transportation information.
• Maintain mailing lists of tribal, local, and rural officials who have transportation-related responsibilities.
• Conduct training courses designed for local and tribal road agencies.
• Provide information on new and existing technologies.
• Perform a self-evaluation of LTAP program services.

In addition to training workshops, LTAPs offer

• Field demonstrations with hands-on training.
• Circuit rider and road show programs and distance learning activities.
• Lending libraries for videos, manuals, workbooks, and other publications and training materials.
• Internet applications and microcomputer software development.
• Adaptation and distribution of technical publications and user manuals.
• Studies on specialized topics.
• Maintains contact information and mailing lists for LTAP centers, FHWA Headquarters, state DOTs, national transportation organizations, and others.
• Distributes three publications, including the LTAP Journal, targeted to governmental agencies and community and transportation leaders.
• Coordinates and plans national conferences and publishes a schedule of regional LTAP meetings.
• Provides services to the tribal LTAP centers and includes a special section on the tribal LTAP on its website.
• Maintains the LTAP Lending Library with demonstration disks, publications, CD-ROMs, and training videos. These may be used for professional development, staff training, sharing technology, or preview.
• Maintains the LTAP Training Exchange, which lists courses that LTAP centers are willing to conduct at other centers.
• Promotes LTAP best practices.

LTAPs help to make roads safer. Here are two examples of LTAPs in action:

• After her grandson was hit by a car in a crosswalk within the town of Gardnerville, NV, a grandmother began a Gardnerville grassroots coalition to improve pedestrian safety. Seven months later, her efforts, in combination with those of the Nevada LTAP Center, brought about a Walkable Communities Workshop. The results of that workshop included improvements to 15 crosswalks and the realignment of a dangerous intersection.
• Sidewalk snow removal is a routine part of winter maintenance in Charlevoix, MI. A front-mount blower, powered by an articulated tractor, does a pretty good job. But raising the blower edge up on shoes to prevent damage to the sidewalk surface often leaves a residue of snow on the walk which softens in the afternoon, then freezes into a hazardous mess. To solve the problem without extra effort or expense, Operator/Mechanic Rick Wilson fabricated a small plow that drags behind the tractor to clean up the residue.
  

LTAP
American Public Works Association
1401 K Street NW, 11th Floor,
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 408-9541
(202) 408-9542 Fax

www.ltapt2.org ² LTAP centers can help communities identify safety problems and appropriate countermeasures. However, such activities as conducting safety audits or similar programs are not done regularly becasue the costs are prohibitive.

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