dc.description.abstract | Crashes are a significant health risk. In 2008 almost 70,000 crash related injuries
occurred in Virginia (Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, 2008). It has been
suggested that the incorporation of safety into the planning process can decrease crash
risk, which cannot only save lives but also decrease the high societal cost associated with
crashes. The purpose of this research is to develop a Virginia specific process that
Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and Planning District Commissions
(PDCs) can use to incorporate safety into the planning process.
This.research was conducted by performing six tasks: a literature search, a survey
of23 Virginia MPOs and PDCs, classification of the MPOs and PDCs into large, medium
and small categories, analysis of the survey, development of a resource guide and the
writing of a final report.
The Resource Guide was developed using three main sources: (i) the survey
results that identified challenges the MPOs/PDCs face in incorporating safety, (ii) ten
elements for assessing the incorporation of safety from the literature (Washington et. al.,
~. . 2006), and (iii) feedblqk from a steering committee comprising of staff from the Virginia
" ..,
Department of Transportation and the Virginia Transportation Research Council who
oversaw this project.
The Resource guide contains eight steps that can be used to incorporate safety
into the planning process. The steps include:
1.Developing a vision statement, goals and objectives for each project in the Constrained
Long Range Plan (CLRP). 2. Developing a producedure for using a wide variety of stakeholders during identifying, prioritizing and selecting projects
3. Using a wide variety of performance measures.
4. Identification of data sources.
5. Evaluating data analysis methods for safety projects.
6. Developing and documenting prioritization process used to identify hazardous
locations.
7. Identifying alternative funding sources for safety projects.
8. Developing a monitoring process for assessing performance of safety projects in the
CLRP.
Each step provides a description of the process, summarizes the challenges from
the survey, provides an example(s) that illustrates its implementation, and lists references
that provide more information on the steps of the Resource Guide. | en |