No, I'm not misunderstanding. I talk with traffic engineers on a regular basis on how the MUTCD is a large barrier towards safer streets. Pavement markings, including lane widths, bike lanes, counter flow bike lanes, HAWK signals, transit lanes and crosswalks affect the street design.
My largest personal pet peeves with the MTUCD is the requirement for far side signal heads. Far side signal heads cause crosswalk encroachment. If signals were near side only like in EU, crosswalk encroachment would be impossible because you lose sight of the signal head.
If you check out my second link in my first comment from NACTO, near the bottom there is a table of various cities and their specific issues with the MUTCD. Mine (Madison, WI) is here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FHWA-2020-0001-0258
I'm 191cm and often can't see the far side signals in a normal seated position in a Civic. If the signal heads were on the near side, I would have to stop like three car lengths away from the intersection to see them from inside the car.
Re: bike lanes, I think it they need to do more to distinguish bike lanes from just extra pavement beyond the white lines. There should be a different color line to make it clear to expect bikes there and not to use it as extra margin if the oncoming traffic is close to the line, etc.
Your previous comment was mainly referring to traffic speed which is primarily a function of geometric design of the road (width, superelevation, sightlines, etc).
> Pavement markings, including lane widths,
With commercial vehicle traffic, lane widths cannot be more narrow than the vehicle. At the body, a commerical vehicle is 8.5 feet wide. Adding mirror width makes them over 10 feet wide. In any case, looking at the scatter plot in this particular study[1], you can see that the 85th percentile speed doesn't really change regardless of whether the width is closer to 10 feet or 12 feet (the 85th percentile speeds ranged from 37 to 50 mph in both cases
> bike lanes,
The MUTCD doesn't really specify the minimum width of a bike lane, but the AASTHO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities does specify a minimum usable pavement width of 4 feet, despite the fact that they say that a cyclist has an operating width of 5 feet.
The MUTCD, unfortunately, allows for a straight through bike like to the right of a general purpose lane that allows for right turning traffic, which leads to the situation that increases the risk of right hook collisions for cyclists. NACTO does not really address that problem with conventional bike lanes as far as I've seen.
> counter flow bike lanes
These shouldn't be allowed mainly because vehicular traffic will not be looking in the direction that counter flow cyclists are coming from and will fail to yield to them as can be seen here[2]. The other problem with contraflow bike lanes is that it increases the cyclists exposure to glare from automotive headlamps because the standard asymmetric beam pattern directs more light to the right and allows for a higher horizontal cutoff. This can basically make it very difficult for cyclists to see where they're going and will make it difficult, if not impossible to spot road hazards in time to avoid them.
> My largest personal pet peeves with the MTUCD is the requirement for far side signal heads. Far side signal heads cause crosswalk encroachment. If signals were near side only like in EU, crosswalk encroachment would be impossible because you lose sight of the signal head.
>> The draft 11th Edition of the MUTCD takes away tools that engineers can use to improve mobility and safety for vulnerable users in challenging and complex urban settings, such as counter flow bike lanes next to parallel parking and the use of HAWK signals (Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons) with bike signals. Lack of these treatments will make many locations more dangerous and harder to access by vulnerable road users
One difference between cyclists and walking pedestrians is that cyclists move much faster. This means that they're further from the intersection when a motorist is making a turn in a situation where they may need to yield.
Normally, a pedestrian is very close to entering the intersection, meaning that a motorist can see them without having to turn their head to look down the sidewalk/path to check for any approaching pedestrians. On the other hand, a cyclist could be 30 feet away from getting to the intersection and out of sight of the motorist unless the motorist makes a conscious effort to look down the sidewalk/path in order to see any approaching cyclist. Most motorists aren't going to do the latter, which means that cyclists are at increased risk of a collision in those situations.
The best option is to enforce protected movements through the intersections with traffic signals and not rely in yielding at all. Unfortunately, most pedestrian and cyclist facilities rely on mutual yielding between them and motorists, which doesn't really work out that well. But if we were to use signals, then everyone will experience significantly more delay and there would be a problem with non-compliance with the signals.
I don't think so. Obviously, the signal heads would have to be placed in a certain way that the MUTCD also prohibits in order to ensure near-side signals are easy and prominent when stopped at the stop bar (for example, minimum signal head distance from ground).
On the contrary, I actually think the MUTCD enforced far side signals create dangerous situations where certain signage, like "no turn on red" is less visible, especially on arterials where most traffic deaths and severe injury occur, because the signage is literally 140 ft away on the opposite side of the intersection on the far-side signal head monopole.
140 ft is very far for any signage placed at this distance when the driver is stopped at the stop bar, especially if you're not specifically looking/familiar with the area.
I was actually hit by someone driving a month ago on a multi use path because a driver turned right on red, despite not not being allowed. I believe that signal head placement led to this, because the no turn on red signage is very hard to see here (again, 140 ft away).
This is in contrast with the Netherlands, for example, which their overhead, near-side signal heads are only 20-30 ft away from the driver, very prominent and easy to see out of the windshield, and any signage next to the signal would be extremely prominent, despite the intersection size being similar (140 ft). NL obviously doesn't allow turns on red in the first place, but that's a whole other discussion...
Sorry I don't have photo examples on this computer atm. But this is something I've been discussing with local city engineers. It's a recurring problem, and they're aware of it, but any solution has to work around the MUTCD.
I do agree with you that signals are incredibly inefficient and ideally we would be getting rid of them wherever possible-
> “Traffic signals are the most mindless and wasteful thing Americans routinely install to manage traffic. Removing nearly all of them within cities would improve our transportation systems and overall quality of life.”
My largest personal pet peeves with the MTUCD is the requirement for far side signal heads. Far side signal heads cause crosswalk encroachment. If signals were near side only like in EU, crosswalk encroachment would be impossible because you lose sight of the signal head.
https://streets.mn/2021/04/30/thinking-outside-the-pedestria...
If you check out my second link in my first comment from NACTO, near the bottom there is a table of various cities and their specific issues with the MUTCD. Mine (Madison, WI) is here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FHWA-2020-0001-0258