The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published a summary report on “Identification of National Work Zone Safety Objectives and Activities.”

The report includes 11 strategic objectives and notes work zone crash trends, providing another resource for ATSSA members.

ATSSA recently published its “Roadway Worker Protection Special Edition,” a supplement to the Fall issue of Roadway Safety magazine, which included articles on building a workplace safety culture, insights on situational awareness and information about the teen driver education program, which addresses navigation through work zones, an ATSS Foundation program.

Kathi Holst is still haunted by the deaths of two roadway workers at companies where she served as an executive. That’s why she’s passionate about the importance of a daily emphasis on worker safety.

ATSSA’s second Roadway Worker Protection Special Edition is now online. This year’s edition focuses on three areas:

• Building a workplace safety culture
• Insights on situational awareness
• A teen driver education program that protects workers, teens and all motorists by teaching new drivers how to safely navigate work zones.

The Roadway Worker Protection Special Edition also includes a state-by-state breakdown of work zone crashes.

With speeding through highway work zones posing an increasingly prevalent threat, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and ATSSA members are taking extensive steps to protect workers engaged in a 3 ½-year project.

The Fall issue of Roadway Safety magazine details the steps those partners are taking for this long-term work on Interstate 494. Read about this project and much more in this issue, available online now.

The magazine also delves into several other issues including artificial intelligence, looking at how it’s being applied to optimize business and employed to raise the bar with intelligent traffic management systems.

ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner will discuss behavioral issues for roadway safety as well as infrastructure on Saturday’s broadcast of Transport Topics Radio with Dan Ronan.

The two-hour weekly program starts at 1 p.m. ET on Saturday with Tetschner’s segment scheduled to start at 2 p.m.

Transport Topics Radio airs on SiriusXM Channel 146 on Saturdays at 1 and 11 p.m. and Sundays at noon and 9 p.m.

Projections for the first half of 2023 show traffic fatalities decreased about 3.3% compared to the same timeframe last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The projected statistics released by NHTSA on Thursday show a decline in fatalities for the fifth consecutive quarter.

The downward pattern for fatalities comes despite a roughly 2.3% increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for the first six months of the year. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released preliminary data showing a VMT increase of about 35.1 billion miles.

With Congress yet to pass the 12 appropriations bills needed to fund the federal government beyond the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, a government shutdown is becoming a real possibility.

While a federal shutdown is a rare occurrence, it can create uncertainty and have economic consequences. In the event of a federal government shutdown, essential functions funded with discretionary funds would continue but many of the federal employees providing these essential services would be doing so without pay until a funding resolution is reached.

Programs funded through the use of mandatory spending – such as Social Security, Medicare and certain federal trust funds like the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) – would continue to function at the start of the new fiscal year.

Get ready for enactment of the new Build America, Buy America Act (BABA) guidelines by attending ATSSA’s free virtual Town Hall on Sept. 7.

Speakers will address questions on the recently released guidance for the Build America, Buy America Act (BABA).

The virtual Town Hall panel will include ATSSA Director of Federal Government Relations Cameron Greene and Kathy Ruffalo, president of Ruffalo & Associates, a Washington-based advocacy and consulting firm. Ruffalo has significant transportation and infrastructure experience at both the federal and state levels.

Registration is now open.

Traffic deaths showed a 3% decrease for the first six months of this year compared to the same period for 2022, according to National Safety Council (NSC) estimates announced today.

NSC estimated 21,150 people died in motor vehicle crashes between January and June, a report of preliminary estimates shows. The nonprofit conducts semiannual estimates on a regular basis. NSC compares its estimates to those of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) as a means of assessing the validity of its estimates. NCHS’s final estimate of motor vehicle deaths for the first six months of 2021 was 1% below the NSC final estimate—21,771 compared to 21,450.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released the final guidance related to the Build America, Buy America Act provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). 

This final guidance includes comparisons to the initial guidance from OMB from April of 2022 and responses to comments submitted to the OMB Request for Information from earlier this year. The IIJA expanded current Buy America requirements for infrastructure projects, including the addition of construction materials as a covered category.  

The final OMB guidance directly responds to specific concerns raised by ATSSA.

The National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD) passed a resolution today recommending the final rule on the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) not be delayed to address this week’s issuance of a final rule for pedestrian accessibility issues.

The U.S. Access Board on Tuesday issued its final rule providing minimum guidelines for accessibility of pedestrian facilities in the public right-of-way, known as PROWAG.

On May 2, ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner sent a letter to Federal Highway Administration Administrator Shailen P. Bhatt urging the FHWA to publish the updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) by the deadline set forth in the U.S. Code, which was May 15.

ATSSA voted in favor of today’s resolution passed by the NCUTCD.