Street Smarts is in the final design phase of a medical clinic addition to the Winn Army Community Hospital at Fort Stewart, Georgia. As sub-consultants to Leo A Daly, Street Smarts is responsible for the site planning, civil/site engineering, landscape architecture, topographic surveying, and subsurface utility engineering disciplines.

With the project seeking to be certifiable for LEED Silver, the site design includes several innovations that will improve the project's sustainability. The landscape is being designed with native and naturalized plants to minimize maintenance as well as an irrigation system that will utilize condensate water produced by the hospital's HVAC systems. This is an excellent solution since the hot, dry summer months are when air conditioning will produce the most water, which coincides with the same time plants need the most water. This reduces the load on the storm drainage system and also provides irrigation without using potable water.

The overall site design has incorporated another innovative technique for managing storm water in a sustainable way. All roof runoff will be collected in two infiltration basins located between the clinic addition and the parking areas. These basins are designed to also serve as landscape features, which will capture, treat and disperse the runoff in an environmentally-friendly manner. The parking areas will be constructed with permeable interlocking concrete pavers which will reduce stormwater runoff through the infiltration of runoff into a stone reservoir subbase beneath the pavers, and then into native underlying soils beneath the subbase. This combination of methods has eliminated the need for a dedicated detention pond or the installation of underground chambers to provide supplemental storage or water quality treatment.

Final design for the medical clinic addition is expected to be complete by the end of 2010.

Street Smarts designed and oversaw the installation of the award-winning HAWK Pedestrian Beacon, the first in the State of Georgia. Located in the City of Suwanee, the experimental beacon was awarded a Golden Shoe Award from the PEDS Pedestrian Advocacy Organization in Atlanta on November 10 for outstanding pedestrian-friendly initiatives. See article.

The High-intensity Activated Crosswalk (HAWK) Pedestrian Beacon is a unique traffic control device intended to provide a safer pedestrian crossing at intersections with moderate to high pedestrian traffic, but not enough vehicular traffic to warrant a traffic signal. The beacon has a unique head configuration to differentiate itself from a traditional signal. It is currently an experimental device, but is expected to be approved in the forthcoming update to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

The device was originally implemented and experimented with in Tucson, Arizona, having been researched by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and found to have driver compliance similar to that of a traffic signal. It has since been given experimental approval from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for intersections in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.

The HAWK required experimental approval from the FHWA because the sequence of the beacon violates the current MUTCD. The device sequence includes both flashing and steady indications during normal operation, which is not allowable in the current MUTCD. It is pedestrian activated and normally rests with the beacons in dark and the pedestrian signal heads showing a Don't Walk symbol. Once the pedestrian has activated the beacon, it begins to flash Yellow, then steady Yellow, then a steady Red with the Walk indication and finally a flashing Red with the Flashing Don't Walk indication. At the end of the sequence, the beacon returns to a dark state with the Don't Walk indication for the pedestrians.

The intersection where the device has been installed is Buford Highway at Town Center Avenue. This intersection is 600-feet south of the intersection of Buford Highway and Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road. The distance between the intersections was insufficient so a signal was denied by GDOT. The intersection provides direct access between the old Suwanee downtown on the West of Buford Highway and the new Suwanee Town Green on the east side of Buford Highway. There is moderate pedestrian traffic crossing Buford Highway and a device was needed to provide a safer crossing.

The intersection was a prime candidate for the experimentation with the HAWK Pedestrian Beacon and the City had to make a request to FHWA in order to experiment with the device. However, the City does not maintain the traffic signals and had to get approval from Gwinnett County for the installation since the County would be required to maintain it. The City also had to get approval from GDOT because it was installed on a State Route. Once the City got approval from the County and the State to experiment with it, a formal application was prepared and submitted to FHWA. The experimentation was approved by FHWA within a couple of weeks.

As part of the approval, the City is required to observe and analyze the effectiveness of the device and report back to FHWA the findings. The driver and pedestrian compliance will be observed and reported, as well as compared to other unsignalized pedestrian crossings in the Atlanta Metro area to determine if it is any more effective than other implementations.

If you have any questions concerning the HAWK or how to go about installing one, please feel free to contact us at Street Smarts. Stay tuned for updates on the device effectiveness for use in your area.

It is likely that you will encounter ramp meters if your travels bring you through Metro Atlanta. The Georgia Department of Transportation will be operating approximately 140 ramp meters in the Atlanta region by the year 2009. Many became operational this year. The ramp meters are controlled by central software located at the TMC (Traffic Management Center). Until they become routine to motorists, a variety of questions are expected. A set of FAQs has been compiled as a resource to answer what will likely be the most common questions.

What are ramp meters, and what do they do?
Resembling a standard traffic signal, a ramp meter is a device located on some freeway entrance ramps, and used to help lessen congestion on busy freeways. When operating, ramp meters cycle back and forth between green and red, allowing one vehicle at a time to enter the freeway on each green signal. Normally, there are 2-5 seconds between green signals. Ramp meters break up groups of entering vehicles and allow them to merge smoothly, one at a time. By spacing vehicles on the entrance ramps, studies have shown that drivers are able to more efficiently and safely merge into the right lane with less impact on the freeway traffic flow.

It seems like motorists will spend a lot of time waiting in line on the ramp. Is that to be expected?
It is certainly true that motorists will likely spend time waiting in line on the ramp. However, with over 120 of the nation's cities currently utilizing ramp meter technology, evidence demonstrates that time lost waiting in line on the ramp is actually made up in much faster travel once on the freeway.

Traffic signals sometimes malfunction and can get stuck on red. A ramp meter seems like just another type of traffic signal which must mean it can get stuck on red too. Likewise, the ramp meter could get stuck on green. What happens if it malfunctions?
Although possible, the TMC has the ability to troubleshoot the problem, reset it, or in the event of a major malfunction, turn the ramp meter off until a technician can be dispatched to fix the problem.

How will you know if the ramp meter is functioning properly?
Because the TMC has the ramp meter control software located in the center, they are able to detect problems quickly. Should a problem develop, they have cameras installed that allow a visual on every ramp meter. As a standard operating procedure, staff monitors these cameras to ensure proper functioning of the system.

What if traffic backs up onto nearby surface streets that are already pretty clogged? That is really going to make people upset!
GDOT operates the ramp meters in such a way that arterial and side streets leading to the metered ramps are not severely impacted. The system can detect congestion spilling back from the ramps and blocking surrounding streets. They are able to manage this condition as the ramp meter control software detects this situation and automatically turns off the ramp meter. If the automatic system fails, there is staff available to manually shut the meter off.

What public education is planned?
The Department has already initiated a comprehensive community awareness campaign with local governments, law enforcement agencies, private businesses and civic organizations to inform the public about the operation and benefits of ramp meters. Additionally, there is a lot of information on the Georgia Department of Transportation website. There is even a ramp meter informational video. It is hoped that by the time most of the ramp meters go live there will be only a few uninformed freeway motorists in the area.

Did you know?
* Over 120 of the nation's cities currently use ramp meter technology.
* Ramp meters only operate in the hours leading up to and during the peak hours of free-way travel.

Where can I learn more about Georgia's Ramp Meter Program?
Additional information about ramp meters can be found on The Georgia Navigator website.

About Kay Wolfe
Ms. Wolfe is a Street Smarts' ITS Business Analyst and Section Manager with over 20 years of experience. She has the unique ability to transform complex customer problems into creative, practical solutions. Extremely effective at eliciting business requirements and communicating those requirements to the technical staff in language that everyone can understand and is equally effective in executive level consulting and solution presentations. Kay's experience includes systems engineering, requirements analysis and functional design, use case modeling and specifications, rational unified process methodology, software test plans and procedures, testing, strategic and tactical business plans for ITS systems.
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