Roadway Median Treatments, MBTC 2067

• Authored by:  Dr. James L. Gattis
• Co-authored by:  L. K. Duncan , M. S. Tooley , A. S. Brewer , M. Q. Le , P. Muthu

Gattis, J.L., L.K. Duncan, M.S. Tooley, A.S. Brewer, M.Q. Le, and P. Muthu, Roadway Median Treatments, MBTC 2067, Mack-Blackwell Transportation Center, Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas (2009)

      This paper presents the results of a case study that studied the relationship between crash rates, cross section design elements (such as roadways with no median, roadways with occasional left-turn lanes, roadways with continuous two-way left turn-lanes, and roadways with raised/ depressed medians) and other operational attributes of multilane urban and suburban roadways (such as speed limits, volumes, widths of through lanes, presence of curb/shoulder, outer shoulder widths, median widths and densities of various types of access). The study compared the crash rates for the four cross section categories and results show that the raised/depressed median group had slightly lower crash rates as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. Crash rate ranking by median type.