“Community Columnist” Michael H. Schrader

(About the responsibility of cities to maintain traffic control devices)

Written 03 September 2016

Almost one year ago, I fell off the face of the earth; specifically, I stopped writing columns for this august paper. It was not that I did not enjoy writing; I do. I changed my employment situation, from a part-time faculty member of an institute of higher learning to a department head for a municipal government, and as a government employee, did not feel that it was appropriate to write an opinion column in a newspaper. I have subsequently returned to the academic world, and have resumed writing.

The department I ran was traffic engineering, meaning I was responsible for maintaining the safe and efficient movement of traffic in the city. There are three primary responsibilities of a traffic engineer – signs, signals, and striping. (The Three S’s) A good traffic engineer ensures that not only are the Three S’s are properly maintained, but also that they are proper at all. There are rules and regulations that every government must follow with respect to the installation of the Three S’s to ensure that they are not installed arbitrarily. For example, a left turn bay should not be installed for a private residence as a political favor; it should only be installed where data and a traffic engineering study indicate it should go. It is only a left turn bay, not a big deal, right? Suppose that in order to install this left turn bay, parking has to be removed, which then affects the usability and value of the adjacent properties, and that, in turn, is a taking for which the government agency who “took” (and us, the taxpayers) is ultimately responsible for.

Signals have very clear standards (called warrants) of where they can be installed. There are eleven warrants, and signals can only be placed at locations that meet one of these warrants. Many times, signals are placed in locations that are not eligible for them to satisfy a political quid pro quo, and these unwarranted signals not only degrade traffic flow, but create a liability for the government entity that installed them. Citations issued at unwarranted signals are often deemed unenforceable because the signal itself is not supposed to be there. In the case of a crash at an unwarranted signal, the government entity may be on the hook for damages.

Signs, like signals, also have very clear standards of where they can be used. The two most commonly abused signs are stop signs and speed limits. Stop signs are often used as a form of speed control, which is contrary to the standards. As in the case of unwarranted signals, citations at inappropriately placed stop signs may not be enforceable, and monetary liability for crashes at these locations often falls on the jurisdiction that installed them, costing you and I, the taxpayers, money. Speed limits are supposed to be set based on engineering studies, as required by Michigan law. However, many speed limits are set by political whims. One of the disappointments I experienced as the City Traffic Engineer for that other city is that all speed limits and stop signs were installed by the city council, and I had no input whatsoever. This bothered me greatly.

Unbeknownst to most, doing speed studies is an important and integral part of the traffic engineer’s job in maintaining a safe and efficient transportation network. The only way a traffic engineer knows how the network is operating is through the collection of data, and since cities are dynamic and constantly changing, data needs to be collected routinely to identify how those changes are impacting the transportation network to be able to make informed decisions about how best to improve the efficiency of the network. When bad weather is approaching, what the storm was like an hour ago is irrelevant to what the storm will be like when it arrives.

To justify cities not updating their speed limits, signals, and signage because of cost or what have you is to justify city staffs not doing their jobs. This is not an unfunded mandate; this is what they are supposed to do. We deserve better.

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