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CRT 2016 #32 · Communication to the City Council · Jun 27 2016
a report from Councillor Dennis J. Carlone, Co-Chair of the Ordinance Committee, for a public hearing held on June 14, 2016 to discuss a proposed amendment to the Municipal Code in Chapter 12.12 entitled “Street Excavations and Obstructions” by adding a new section 12.12.065 entitled “Maintenance of Safe Passage – Proper Marking of Hazards and Trench Closure Required.”
Addressing Construction Street
Hazards in Cambridge
Through an ordinance requiring road hazards be
brightly painted yellow and/or reducing the
angle of obstruction to 30 degrees above the
horizontal plane
• 12.12.065 – Maintenance of safe passage—Proper marking of hazards and
trench closure required.
• A.
Whenever any street is opened, occupied, obstructed or encumbered by
any department of the City, or any other party to include contractors and
subcontractors, workers much ensure that hazards in the work area must be
clearly marked and safely managed to mitigate dangers to cyclists by:
• 1.
Mark all vertical surfaces of 1 inch or more that are more than 30 degrees
off of horizontal with bright yellow paint on the entire vertical surface(s) and at
least ½ of the horizontal surface;
• B.
At all seam areas, where the roadwork is milled up to existing surface,
pavement will be either ground at no greater than a 30 degree angle or have a
ramp of asphalt fill ensuring that the contact point between the milled work and
the existing surface has a ramp of no more than 30 degrees and the entire length
of the seam area will be marked with bright yellow paint;
• 1.
Ensuring that the paint marking hazards is refreshed as needed to maintain
the required coverage;
• 2.
Ensuring that all open trench or patching work will be closed by the end of
business on Fridays except when weekend work is scheduled.
• C.
Violations of the paint requirement would be viewed as clear evidence of
negligence on the part of whatever party was doing the street work.
The Challenge
Roadwork frequently results in exposed steel castings, shifts in
pavement height and other hazards to cyclists during construction that
can and do lead to accidents and injuries as cyclists, distracted by traffic,
jaywalkers and/or weather, fail to see these street hazards in time to
avoid them.
This issue is compounded that the paint used to mark, albeit
inconsistently, some of these hazards is not always visible to people with
color vision challenges.
In same cases, existing street markings can send
dangerous signals to cyclists who are used to guiding
off of such markings and fail to see new, unmarked
hazards.