By Ron Thaniel
December 20, 2010

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a Request for Comments on November 30 regarding compliance dates to upgrade non-compliant traffic control devices to comply with requirements established in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). The Notice asks for responses to a series of questions about compliance dates, their benefits and economic impacts, and other related issues. Comments must be received on or before January 14, 2011.

The FHWA is requiring that the lettering on street name signs be composed of combination of lower-case letters with initial upper case letters. The Notice, which as published in the November 30 Federal Register, states that there is no specific compliance date for replacement of existing street name signs that use all capital lettering. It states that existing street name signs using all capital letters can remain in place until they need to be replaced due to end of service life or some other reason. The FHWA has concluded that this approach enables cities to defer upgrading non-compliant devices until the device wears out or is damaged or destroyed.

The seven specific questions regarding MUTCD compliance dates are listed below, for which the FHWA requests input on each, to help further examine this issue.

1. What, if any, difficulties does your organization anticipate in meeting the seven MUTCD compliance dates discussed above for upgrading existing non-compliant devices in the field?

2. Are there one or more of these seven compliance dates that are more problematic than the others for your organization? If so, which ones, and why?

3. If some or all of these seven compliance dates were extended, how long do you estimate it would take to complete the necessary traffic control device upgrades?

4. What safety or other impacts would result from extending some or all of these seven compliance dates?

5. Are there other MUTCD compliance dates not described in this notice that are problematic for your organization? If yes, which ones, and why?

6. What considerations should be applied to establish new compliance dates in the MUTCD?

7. What other comments or input do you wish to provide to FHWA regarding MUTCD compliance dates for upgrading existing traffic control devices?

Comments may be submitted to the Federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov. The FHWA Docket Number is FHWA-2010-0159. An electronic copy of the FHWA Notice is available at the Federal Register's home page at http://www.archives.gov/federal_register.