New Jersey’s Safe Corridor Program

New Jersey’s Safe Corridor Program was developed from the “Safety First” initiative, which was designed to improve the overall traffic safety of the State’s roadways. Thirteen “Safe Corridors” were designated under this program, which consisted of 10-mile segments of highways selected based on traffic fatalities, total numbers of crashes and crash rates compared to Statewide Average Rates for similar roadway sections. These corridors, generally divided arterials, were legislated into existence, such that signs could be posted and fines doubled for various moving violations within the corridor limits. Safety Impact Teams (SITs) were formed to study these Safe Corridors. These teams were made up of individuals with diverse backgrounds and expertise, each providing unique perspectives on safety issues within the corridors. The SITs include public officials on the Federal, State and local levels, as well as representatives from the American Automobile Association (AAA), transit agencies, municipal planning organizations (MPOs) and private sector engineering firms. These SITs convene for meetings over three days, during which the group studies crash and physical data on the corridor, visits the corridor to observe field conditions, and develops safety improvement recommendations that are broken into short, medium, and long term implementation schedules. To date, nine of the Safe Corridors have been studied by SITs, including one of the corridors most recently proposed for entry into the program under a newer methodology refining previous selection parameters. Six Safe Corridors have completed the study phase and specific recommendations are currently under design. This paper summarizes the method for collecting, compiling, and interpreting the extensive data used by the SIT. The paper includes methods for selecting in-depth study locations in the field; discusses the three days of SIT meetings, including lessons learned; shares common recommendations generated from the SITs, including engineering, educational and enforcement solutions; and defines next steps toward implementation of the recommendations.

• Corporate Authors:

  Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)

  Washington, DC  United States 
• Authors:
  • Kotchi, Alfred W
  • Conover, Kevin M
• Conference:
  • ITE 2007 Annual Meeting and Exhibit
  • Location: Pittsburgh PA, United States
  • Date: 2007-8-5 to 2007-8-8
• Publication Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: 2007 Annual Meeting and Exhibit Compendium of Technical Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash rates; Data collection; Fatalities; Traffic safety
• Uncontrolled Terms: Safety corridors
• Geographic Terms: New Jersey
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01362759
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 16 2012 10:14AM