Signs Led The Way

Gene Hawkins has transportation engineering in his blood. The son of a traffic engineer, Hawkins was introduced to transportation at a young age by his father and it remains with him to this day.

As division head, Operations & Design Division at the Texas Transportation Institute, Hawkins has been involved in rewriting the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, various aspects of traffic signs, pavement markings and signals to name a few. Additionally, Hawkins will play a prominent role in two workshops to be held at the American Traffic Safety Services Association’s Traffic Expo 2002, Feb. 8-12, 2002, in Dallas.

Gene Hawkins is Transportation Management + Engineering’s Industry Icon.

I am a second-generation traffic engineer, my father having graduated from the Yale Bureau of Highway Traffic in the mid-1950s. Growing up, the first words I learned to read were those on traffic signs. I have clear recollections of my dad demonstrating new pavement marking materials at home and bringing me back sample signs from conventions. So I guess I grew up with it in my blood.

I started college studying civil engineering, but took classes in all civil engineering areas instead of focusing on transportation. I did some traffic engineering during my early career in consulting. It wasn’t until I joined the Texas Transportation Institute that I began to spend all of my time on transportation engineering activities.

The move to TTI was one of those events in life that resulted from a series of occurrences rather than as part of an organized plan. I had been thinking about making a change, but had been looking at other consulting opportunities. I had never seriously thought about returning to an academic environment. But one of my mentors at the consulting firm I worked for had joined TTI a year or so earlier and encouraged me to consider the opportunity when the situation was right. Fortunately for me, there was a spot for me at TTI, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the people at TTI that I have worked with and the projects that I have worked on.

If I had to pick one project that stands out the most, it would be a TxDOT-sponsored project evaluating rural guide signing. As part of the research implementation process, we developed the TxDOT Sign Crew Field Book. This document addresses several issues of concern to field crews, including placement aspects of signs on rural highways, delineation and mailboxes. We designed the document to be used by field personnel, with an emphasis on figures instead of text, but it has been widely used by both field personnel and design personnel in TxDOT.

Over the last decade, I have focused almost exclusively on projects dealing with various aspects of traffic signs, pavement markings and signals. I am proud to have been associated with teams of researchers and sponsors on these projects that have provided useful results to our sponsors. But I am most proud of the program of sign and marking visibility research that we have developed over the last few years. I think it is among the best in the country.

Although TTI has conducted visibility and legibility research many years ago, there was no active program until six or seven years ago. We have built upon our initial sign legibility research and are now conducting a number of research studies evaluating various aspects of legibility, visibility or retroreflectivity of signs and markings.

The history of the MUTCD has been one of my favorite subjects over the last decade or so. It has been interesting to look back at the old editions of the MUTCD and see how the document has evolved.

There are several things that make the current manual much different than its predecessors. First of all is its size. It is over 500 pages longer, and over twice as thick. It also has a brand-new format, with every sentence categorized as a standard (shall), guidance (should), option (may) or support. This was done to eliminate phrases such as: "is normally required," "shall preferably be used," "may be required," and a host of others that were unclear in the intent and the meaning of which could often be resolved only in the courtroom. The new manual also has a lot of new content, including two new parts—low volume rural roads and light rail crossings.

As I mentioned previously, the history of the MUTCD is a passion of mine. In 1990, I acquired a collection of all editions of the national MUTCD and used them to develop several papers on the history of the document. I recently dusted off some of that information and developed an updated presentation on how the MUTCD has evolved from the early days of the 20th century.

In the presentation I will describe a little of each edition of the MUTCD and present photos and graphics of some of the signs and other devices that are representative of those time frames.

We are currently conducting several research projects on pavement markings. One of them is evaluating the effectiveness of pavement markings for TxDOT. We recently held a conference on performance and warranty specifications for pavement markings as part of that project.

My ATSSA presentation will cover some of the highlights of what we learned from that conference and what some of the other agencies around the country are doing with regard to performance and warranty specifications for markings.

I am very glad to see the emphasis that ATSSA is placing on work-zone safety. It is only through the concerted effort of industry leaders such as ATSSA that we can make a difference. Unfortunately, it is not enough. The 2000 statistics indicate a 25% increase in work-zone fatalities from 1999. Workers, users, agencies, citizens, industry and elected officials should establish a goal of zero fatalities and work diligently toward that goal. We may never get there, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.

Predicting the future is always a tough challenge. One of my concerns is the shrinking resources available to transportation agencies. Many agencies are finding that elected officials are reducing their budgets, staffing levels or both. As a result, many more of the activities previously provided by transportation agencies are being outsourced or are not performed at the same level as in the past. This is part of the reason that toll facilities are likely to increase. I think that you may see the transportation industry sector assuming an increasing responsibility for our nation’s transportation facilities in the future through innovative contracting and maintenance agreements. Replacing our aging infrastructure will be the primary focus, and our citizens will want the work done so that contractors "get in, get out and stay out."

I think that advanced technology will continue to play an ever-increasing role in improving the safety and efficiency of our transportation system. Eventually, we will have automated vehicles, but I’m not expecting that to be a common feature within my lifetime.

The repercussions from the recent tragic events may be felt for many years. It may be necessary to implement various features to protect the security of our surface transportation system. The need for greater security also may hasten the implementation of vehicle tracking capabilities, which could provide many benefits from an operational standpoint without jeopardizing the privacy or civil rights of road users.