| Organization: | Massachusetts Department of Transportation Highway Division |
|---|---|
| Date published: | October 29, 2024 |
How to use the toolkit
There is a clear link between speed and serious injury in crashes. That’s why a safe system approach is vital to the safety of everyone on the road. A safe system encourages safe speeds through roadway treatments to reduce potential crashes and associated injuries as much as possible. With physical and engineering-related roadway treatments effectively implemented, streets become self-enforcing, reducing speed related conflicts and serious crashes.
In this toolkit you will find basic information about roadway treatments strategies that you can put into action in your municipality and have been effectively implemented in Massachusetts. Once certain speed management measures are put into place, evaluation of speeds can be conducted to see if speeds have effectively changed and if people of all ages and abilities feel comfortable using the roadway. Efforts can always be made to further enhance the safety of our roadways through a phased approach of implementation, evaluation, and additional treatments and evaluation.
Read on and click through to discover physical and engineering-related measures to help you address speed-related concerns.
Establish a target speed
A target speed is the highest operating speed at which drivers should ideally operate on a roadway given a specific context. Over time, roadway features or uses can change, which may mean that practitioners need to revisit appropriate target speeds, rather than just defaulting to existing speed limits. In practice, these kinds of roadway evolutions can mean that while a driver may be adhering to the speed limit, they are still traveling at a speed too high for the roadway environment. As such, there is a need to evaluate the changing context and use of the roadway. Although speed limits are part of the equation, effective speed management requires a comprehensive plan that includes physical roadway features designed to control driving speeds.
In some instances, a target speed may be high and cannot be reduced. In these instances, separation of users is needed to make it safe through treatments like sidewalks, separated bike lanes, and protected intersections.
There are guides that can help you determine appropriate target speeds for your municipality. The National Association of City Transportation Officials provides a City Limits guide to help identify target speeds in many contexts.
Design features that can support safe speeds
| Type of roadway treatment | Description |
|---|---|
| Vertical deflection countermeasures | Speed humps, raised pedestrian crossings, or raised intersections that raise roadways for various lengths to slow drivers. |
| Horizontal countermeasures | Median islands, chicanes or curves, or curb extensions that change the horizontal cross-section of a roadway. Chicanes are a series of curb extensions that alternate from one side of the street to the other, forming S-shaped curves that essentially narrow the roadway width and create an environment that slows down drivers. |
| Mini roundabouts and neighborhood traffic circles | Small-scale circular islands that act as a kind of intersection, offering yield-controlled entries and counterclockwise circulation in order to improve safety and reduce delays. |
| Road diets and marking measures | Strategies such as perceptual speed markings, road diets, and lane narrowing. A road diet is a roadway configuration that involves narrowing or eliminating travel lanes to calm traffic speeds and increase safety of all roadway users. Road diets do not automatically impact throughput or cause congestion, and when it does safety is the preferred tradeoff. |
| Speed transition zones, advisory, and feedback signage | Strategies to slow drivers traveling from a rural to an urban environment and signs that communicate recommended speed information and feedback to drivers. |
Safe design for higher speed roadways
In some instances, a target speed may be high and cannot be reduced. In these instances, separation of users is needed to make it safe. Some examples of design features that can both protect all road users include: separated bike lanes, protected intersections, side paths, and safer crossings for pedestrians.
Share your speed management success
If you’ve successfully implemented speed management measures in your community, please share your experience. Send information to MassDOT so that we can reach you to collect the details of your experience.
Take action and learn more
- Public: Reach out to municipal government to voice concerns and share speed management information.
- Municipalities: Work closely with members of the public and MassDOT to define areas where roadway safety can be improved. Additionally, municipalities initiate and implement speed management roadway treatments and speed zoning studies.
- MassDOT: Work closely with municipalities to help them conduct speed studies and implement speed management. MassDOT also signs official speed limits into law.
- Safe Speed homepage
- Learn about speed management
- Visit the Shared Streets and Spaces Grant program to learn more about funding opportunities
- Learn more about the role of speed limits in speed management
- Contact MassDOT to request speed zoning for MassDOT-owned roads
- For municipality-owned roads in urban, suburban, and town village context, visit NACTO City Limits, a guide to identifying appropriate target speed
- Request speed regulation information and engineering data from MassDOT
- Review Procedures for Speed Zoning on State Highways and Municipal Roads
- Visit the GeoDOT grant page to find out more about funding and technical assistance resources for safe speed management in your community.
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