Awaiting Report Item Number 18-122, requesting Traffic, Parking, and Transportation explore the possibility of posting a "No Trucks" sign on Hancock Street south of Massachusetts Avenue

Truck Exclusion Procedures

Heavy commercial vehicle exclusions on all public rights-of-way are subject to approval by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). The procedures for obtaining an exclusion are laid out in the Massachusetts Amendments to the 2009 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, January 2012 on page 11 (the Massachusetts Amendments to the MUTCD are available online here).

Hancock Street Analysis

In order to determine if a truck exclusion would be appropriate on the segment of

Hancock Street south of Massachusetts Avenue, the Department conducted 48-hour

traffic counts on March 19th and 20th, 2019. The counts include traffic volumes, speeds, and classifications of vehicles broken down on an hourly and a daily basis. The counts indicate that an average of 950 vehicles per day travel down Hancock Street. Speeds were low, with an 85th percentile speed of 16 mph and an average speed of 13 mph. The counts indicated that 2.4 percent of the vehicles traveling down Hancock Street were classified as heavy vehicles, or approximately 22 per day.

Given the very low volume of heavy vehicles on Hancock Street, it is expected that an exclusion would not be approved by MassDOT, since they generally do not approve truck exclusions when the percentage of trucks is this low. In addition, an exclusion would not apply to vehicles with a destination within the local area around the street. Given the low volume of trucks, it is likely that many of these vehicles traveling on Hancock Street do have a local destination and thus would not be subject to an exclusion.

As a result, our recommendation is to not pursue a truck exclusion on Hancock Street at this time, given the low likelihood of receiving approval from MassDOT.