What’s new with the Safety, Design & Operations Council

This is part of a series of articles profiling the online meetings of TAC’s six councils and their committees that occurred in April 2023.

TAC’s Safety, Design & Operations Council welcomed 37 attendees to its spring meeting on April 20.

Guest presentations

The Council received presentations from Pedram Izadpanah on connected automobiles and road safety, and from John Morrall on cross slopes and climate change. 

Technical project presentation

The Council heard a presentation from Selby Thannikary of WSP Canada on TAC’s Access Management Synthesis of Practice project. That initiative is nearing completion and will produce a report on current access management practices for all roadway classifications in rural, suburban and urban areas, and will provide the technical basis for a subsequent project to update Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads: Chapter 8.

Committee updates

The Council received updates from its four committees.

The Geometric Design Committee meeting attracted 90 attendees. It featured presentations on turning streets into community features, pedestrian through zones, and training. Notable areas of discussion included climate change risk assessments, W-beam end treatments, very low speed roads, and greenhouse gases at roundabouts. The Committee also heard about the TAC project on access management.

The Road Safety Committee meeting involved 94 participants. In addition to agency updates, the Committee heard technical presentations on connected automobile data for traffic and road safety analysis, improving visibility via better roadway lighting design, and rethinking mobility from a global road safety perspective. The Committee also heard an overview of TAC’s recently published Vision Zero and Safe System Approach: A Primer for Canada that originated from the Committee’s Vision Zero & Safe Systems Subcommittee.

The Small Municipalities Integrated Committee meeting was attended by 29 participants and involved discussions on the roles of roundabouts as gateway features, non-conventional transit services, and cybersecurity. The results of a survey of small municipalities were also discussed.

The Traffic Operations & Management Committee meeting attracted 49 participants and addressed ongoing volunteer projects to further applications, practices and devices that feed into TAC’s Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Canada. A notable exchange of information occurred on two new U.S. Federal Highway Administration documents: Signing for Designated Alternative Fuels Corridors, and Colored Pavement in Crosswalks.

Safety, Design & Operations Council Executive volunteers

• Chair – Ashley Curtis (City of Toronto)
• Chair, Geometric Design Committee – Jeff Crang (Tetra Tech Canada)
• Chair, Road Safety Committee – Rebecca Peterniak (City of Winnipeg)
• Chair, Small Municipalities Integrated Committee – Jim Mallett (Paradigm Transportation Solutions Limited)
• Chair, Traffic Operations & Management Committee – Winston Chou (City of Vancouver)
• Board Liaison – Kevin Volk (British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure)