An Agency Guide on Overcoming Unique Challenges to Localized Congestion Reduction Projects

Executive Summary

The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Localized Bottleneck Reduction Initiative (LBR) program focuses attention on mitigating the operational causes of recurring congestion “hot spots” (i.e., traffic bottlenecks) at ramps, merges, lane drops, intersections, weaves, etc. One of the efforts of the LBR program is to encourage agencies to adopt a defined, “named” annualized spot-congestion program in the same manner that they might have an annualized spot-safety program for high crash locations. In the course of conducting state visits to “spread the gospel” of the tremendous benefits of clearing up one or more congested bottlenecks, the LBR staff has occasionally heard “push back” from some agencies that cite institutional or other barriers to enacting either individual projects or agency-wide programs. Examples of some of these barriers would be “we can’t enact (these types of solutions) because (we feel) they violate firm safety design tenets or regulations;” or, “we can’t undertake a spot-solution on a freeway absent having a vetted, adopted, twenty-year plan (or similar) already in place;” or, “how would such projects affect (our) Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPOs) air quality, nonattainment status?”  Conversely, the LBR staff has conducted state visits wherein these questions never came up; either signifying no such concerns, or success in overcoming them.

This document was developed to provide guidance to state and local transportation personnel on how to overcome barriers and challenges to implementation of localized congestion relief projects. It presents and describes examples of institutional, design, funding and safety challenges that agencies face when trying to develop unique solutions to localized congestion problems.

The document also presents ten detailed case studies of projects and programs that illustrate how to overcome common barriers and challenges. The case studies were chosen to highlight agencies that have implemented effective projects in a unique and praiseworthy fashion. The final section provides some high-level guidance and practical ideas on how to implement successful solutions to localized congestion problems based on experience and information gathered during this project.