The prevailing theme of the various proposals here is a call for greater efficiency, elimination of duplicate services and acheiving consistent, high-standard roads statewide with as little cost as possible. The most significant problem with local roads in Georgia is a lack of standardization and inconsistency varying by county, and this proposal here is one that simply fixes what is wrong in lieu of changing the entire structure. This is desperately needed, and the four major reasons for this are listed below:
- Lack of engineering oversight in most rural counties in the state
- No required state oversight by the Georgia Department of Transportation. Since counties are divisions of state government, then enforcement of sound engineering practices on local governments is necessary to assure that local roads are properly designed and safe.
- Except in projects funded by the State or Federal government, State standards apply only to state highways, not local roadways even though local roads make up 84% of the roadways in the state
- There are no uniform accepted standards statewide for traffic sign installation, agreed on best practices (ex: a policy on where and when curve signs should be installed) and maintenance that apply to all roads in the state.
After many years of studying this, I looked at the states that did have generally uniform signage on both county and state roads and tried to understand what was different and what solution would acheive the objective without a drastic measure such as consolidation or cross-jurisdictional agreements. These are my conclusions as to what would fix this problem:
- Any county in Georgia with a population under 50,000 shall have all roads within that county under the oversight of the Georgia DOT District Engineer if the county lacks or is unable to fund a full-time county engineer. In doing this, the DOT shall act as a surrogate in the same capacity as a county engineer, but only for the purpose of oversight of routine maintenance on county roads. The district engineer will guide the county commissioners and county road department in proper and standard application of traffic signs, signals, pavement markings and guardrails. The district engineer shall be permitted to directly offer recommendations to the county commissioners on the proper standards, and he/she will oversee the conducting of traffic studies when needed. This will effectively expand the responsibility of the engineer to county roads in those counties in addition to state highways, but will in no way usurp local control over the roads.
- Most counties with populations under 50,000 typically do not have a county engineer on staff due to them being their most highly paid employee when the county has too small of a tax base to fund an engineer or engineering department.
- Having no engineer on staff means that there is no assurance that what maintenance work is being performed on the road is being conducted correctly.
- Also, this is needed in order to establish a working relationship between the local governments and Georgia DOT on maintenance as well as road projects so that the DOT can acheive the same performance goals for local roads as state roads and correct long-standing problems in county road systems that typically are overlooked in rural counties.
- This is the best way to achieve greater uniformity, consistency and accountability on the roads statewide, providing a long term solution that does not require any radical changes to the road system or local control.
- This would also make the transfer of less important state routes to local control less problematic if the same levels of routine maintenance could be maintained.
- If the county already has an engineer, regardless of population, then the engineer may be permitted to obtain assistance from the District Engineer to perform traffic studies to determine needed sign upgrades with no cost to the county.
- County engineers in urbanized counties typically have high workloads and thus are unable to focus on smaller items such as signs, markings and other safety improvements, which could be handled by the DOT better in these cases
- This in no way funds the sign projects, only the studies
- Any city in Georgia with a population under 5,000 who maintains their own street system in lieu of an intergovernmental agreement with the county shall also be eligible for the above.
- Small cities share the same issues including lack of engineering staff, insufficient revenues and poor economies of scale, which result in the same quality control problems as rural counties
- Counties with populations over 50,000 shall be required to have their own county engineer(s) on staff with no state assistance.
- Counties with higher populations typically already have county engineers, and typically have a workload that would cause an undo burden on GDOT
- A list is provided below with a couple more counties that will soon be added due to population increases
- All signage statewide on local roads shall be required to not only comply with MUTCD standards, but also Georgia Department of Transportation standards including, but not limited to, reflectivity; sign dimensions, signposts and other materials used. Existing signs shall not be required to be replaced with the new standard outside of available funding and the routine maintenance cycle, but all new installations must comply with this standard. The DOT shall withhold funding to counties for non-compliance.
- Signage is horribly inconsistent statewide and typically is non-compliant not only in state standards, but also the MUTCD in that such items as improper fonts, incorrectly designed symbols and incorrect sign dimensions are commonplace.
- Sign posts, post height and reflectivity are inconsistent and typically less than state standards as a rule in most counties
- Currently, no incentive or penalty exists for non-compliance
- In counties with a population under 50,000 or cities with a population under 5,000 that lack adequate equipment or personnel to install and maintain signage to the standards dictated by the DOT and MUTCD, the DOT will assist in the installation and maintenance of traffic control devices.
- Many rural counties lack the staff or equipment to properly install or mount signs to the required height and depth, and this also is a duplicatin of services since DOT barns are also in these same counties. A smaller number of personnel employed by the DOT could perform the same work over multiple counties for less with better equipment
- For items 1 and 6, all work performed other than that which would be provided will depend on funding provided by the jurisdiction responsible for the road. No additional expenses will be required by the county beyond compliance with the Item 5 nor will the State be required to fund any work beyond Items 1, 2, 3 and 6. The State will not be paying for any signage, only engineering services and some labor.
- The purpose here is to avoid an unfunded mandate that requires costly sign overhauls in lieu of gradual upgrade, correction and replacement of signs dependent on available funding and recommendations
- The DOT shall develop guidelines for local governments on warning, guide and regulatory signage based on their own practices in order to attempt to achieve consistent application statewide. An example of this is the Iowa Traffic Control Devices and Pavement Markings: A Manual for Cities and Counties or the CalTrans supplement to the MUTCD.
- This involves very specific guidelines on where curve signs should be used, hazard marking, special application recommendations, differing requirements for collector routes vs. low-volume local roads and proper regulatory signage/applications.
- This would also provide for traffic management solutions such as guide signage, route signs and trail blazer signage on collector routes off-system
- This must be specific state law that the local governments must comply with, not a DOT policy
The next is a list of counties that would not be eligible for Items 1 and 6 because their populations exceed 50,000. A few other counties will soon be ineligible as their population nears this number. A list of ineligible cities is not available at this time.
| Bartow |
DeKalb |
Jackson |
| Bibb |
Douglas |
Liberty |
| Bulloch |
Dougherty |
Lowndes |
| Carroll |
Fayette |
Muscogee |
| Catoosa |
Floyd |
Newton |
| Chatham |
Forsyth |
Paulding |
| Cherokee |
Fulton |
Richmond |
| Clarke |
Glynn |
Rockdale |
| Clayton |
Gwinnett |
Spalding |
| Cobb |
Hall |
Troup |
| Columbia |
Henry |
Walker |
| Coweta |
Houston |
Walton |
|
