There’s a cause {that a} cease register Sheboygan seems to be like a cease register Seattle. There’s a cause that highway lanes are divided by white and yellow markings in each locations too. There’s additionally a cause why, if a bicycle lane image etched on the road is accompanied by a phrase, like “SLOW,” the bicycle all the time comes first. The cause is 862 pages lengthy and has been round, in a single kind or one other, for 85 years: the Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

The concept behind the guide is that, for roads to be secure, they should be constant, regardless of the place persons are driving, strolling, or scootering. The guide is “a visual representation of what the rules of the road are,” says Jeff Lindley, the deputy govt director of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. It received’t inform you when to put in a roundabout, however it should inform you the signal you want to assist clueless drivers navigate a roundabout. “It’s not a real fun evening bedtime read,” says Luke Schwartz, the transportation supervisor for the metropolis of San Luis Obispo, California.

For transportation engineers, the guide is akin to knowledgeable bible, which they seek the advice of weekly, if not each day. Inside is a mixture of necessary shalls, most likely good shoulds, and OK-to-do mays. The Federal Highway Administration, the US Department of Transportation company that has managed what goes in the guide since 1971, maintains that engineers ought to all the time use their skilled judgment to decide whether or not a specific highway signal, lane marking, or bicycle stencil works for the scenario.

Now the guide is getting its first replace in 11 years. That’s introduced out critics who say it’s outdated and too targeted on vehicles reasonably than individuals on foot or two wheels. Some metropolis officers need the freedom to create site visitors indicators, markings, and road configurations that cater to their native roads, and the various choices—bus, moped, escooter—now out there to their residents. They need the flexibility to select totally different bike lane markings or to set up colourful crosswalks, decisions that aren’t endorsed by the guide. (Federal officers have issued sternly worded letters to cities together with St. Louis, Ames, Iowa, and Lexington, Kentucky, urging them to deliver inventive crosswalks into compliance.) Earlier this 12 months, a number of progressive transportation teams launched an effort to not simply tweak the guide, however to reframe and rewrite it.

The tussle over an obscure set of federal guidelines factors to a bigger pattern in transportation planning: a renewed concentrate on making streets equitable, climate-conscious, and secure for everybody, not simply these in cars.

Nationwide, security statistics are moving the wrong way. Preliminary information collected by the Governors Highway Safety Association discovered a 4.eight % enhance in pedestrian deaths final 12 months. Factor in the diminished driving due to the pandemic and the quantity will get much more dire: a 21 % enhance in pedestrian deaths per automobile mile traveled. That’s the largest leap since the authorities began maintaining observe of such numbers in 1975.

“This is the time to say, ‘What should the spirit of the document be? And what should be the best way forward?’” says Zabe Bent, the director of design at the National Association of City Transportation Officials, a gaggle representing metropolis departments of transportation in North America that’s spearheading the effort to reframe the guide.

The Federal Highway Administration launched a draft of proposed modifications late final 12 months. The final time the guide bought an replace, just a few thousand individuals, principally transportation professionals, submitted feedback. This 12 months, 26,000 feedback poured in from throughout the nation.