HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

152nd GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HOUSE SUBSTITUTE NO. 1

FOR

HOUSE BILL NO. 247

AS AMENDED BY

SENATE AMENDMENT NO. 1

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 9 AND 17 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO TRAFFIC SAFETY.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE:

Section 1. Amend Subchapter III, Chapter 1, Title 17 of the Delaware Code by making deletions as shown by strike through and insertions as shown by underline as follows:

§ 135A. Authority to construct low-speed local streets and local roads.

(a) The Department may plan, designate, construct, operate, and maintain low-speed local streets or roads to improve safety in accordance with a Safe System Approach by implementing proven safety countermeasures, including the following:

(1) Implementing roadway reconfigurations.

(2) Narrowing travel lanes or edge line striping.

(3) Constructing raised medians, pinch points, chicanes, speed humps, speed tables, roundabouts, traffic circles, or diverters.

(4) Implementing corridor access management.

(5) Reducing clear zone conflicts.

(6) Altering the operation of signals.

(7) Other means found appropriate by the Department.

(b) The Department shall design such designated low-speed streets or roads so that they have no more than 2 through-travel lanes for motor vehicles and with a goal that the free-flowing eighty-fifth percentile motor vehicle traffic speeds are 25 miles per hour or less in municipalities and 35 miles per hour or less in unincorporated areas. Such designated local streets and local roads shall be especially designed for local traffic to safely access abutting properties at low speed. In addition, the Department shall develop and implement design standards for low-speed streets or roads in accordance with a Safe System Approach to meet the goals of this section, including traffic calming, diversion of motor vehicle through traffic, and the protection of vulnerable users to reduce or eliminate safety risks on designated low-speed local streets and roads.

(c) The Department shall publish annually county specific maps and lists identifying locations of fatal and serious injury crashes in all primary emphasis areas included in the Strategic Highway Safety Plan.

(d) As used in this title, “Safe System Approach” means working in a comprehensive way and in cooperation with other State agencies, county, and local governments to improve all aspects of roadway safety through the following five initiatives:

(1) Safe road users. Providing education and training programs to improve behavior for all users of the road.

(2) Safe vehicles. In addition to the requirements under Title 21, implementing technologies in the roadway infrastructure that can prevent crashes or lessen their severity.

(3) Safe speeds. Setting and enforcing speed limits based on what the road and surrounding environment can safely accommodate for all roadway users.      

(4) Safe roads. Designing and maintaining all elements of the State’s roadway infrastructure to be forgiving of user mistakes and minimize the impact of crashes on human life.      

(5) Post-crash care. Implementing emergency response systems on the State’s roadway network and technology infrastructure to enable efficient delivery of critical care to those involved in crashes.

Section 2. Amend § 146, Title 17 of the Delaware Code by making deletions as shown by strike through and insertions as shown by underline as follows:

§ 146. Access to state-maintained highways.

(e) The Justice of the Peace Courts shall have jurisdiction over violations of   subsections (b), (c), and (d) of   this section.

(f) In addition to whatever legal or equitable remedies are available, the Department may install barricades across or remove any entrance or exit constructed, opened, reconstructed, maintained, modified or used in violation of this section and the standards or regulations adopted pursuant thereto, at the expense of the property owner.

(g) Along existing highways, the Department may exercise its authority under § 137 of this title to acquire property rights for consolidating commercial entrances or to create new commercial interconnections, when the Department determines such consolidation or interconnection would likely improve safety in accordance with a Safe System Approach, as defined in § 135A of this title. Private properties made non-conforming under local zoning codes as a result of State acquisitions to consolidate entrances for traffic safety reasons are exempt from variance requirements under any county or municipal zoning code.

Section 3. Amend § 147, Title 17 of the Delaware Code by making deletions as shown by strike through and insertions as shown by underline as follows:

§ 147. Authority to establish standards for traffic-control devices.

(a) The Department shall adopt a uniform standard for each type of traffic-control device to be used on all highways open to the public in this State. Such standard shall correlate with, and so far as practical, conform to the standards used in other states.   states, except that the Department is authorized to adopt different standards and types of devices or applications if the Department determines that, based on engineering judgment, different standards or types of devices or applications are needed in order to reduce fatal or serious injury crashes or improve safety in accordance with a Safe System Approach, as defined under § 135A of this title. For purposes of this subsection, “standards” includes publications, policies, guidelines, or memoranda.

(b) The standards shall be recorded in a manual to be known as the Delaware Manual on Uniform Traffic-Control Devices for Streets and Highways. The manual shall have separate chapters setting individual standards for signs, signals and markings.

(c) Any traffic-control device erected in violation of the manual, except experimental devices erected by the Department, shall be unofficial, unauthorized and unenforceable.

Section 4. Amend § 172, Title 17 of the Delaware Code by making deletions as shown by strike through and insertions as shown by underline as follows:

§ 172. Definition of a controlled-access facility.

For the purposes of this subchapter, a controlled-access facility is defined as a highway   or street  especially designed for through   motor vehicle   traffic, and over, from or to which owners or occupants of abutting land or other persons have no right or easement or only a controlled right or easement of access, light, air or view by reason of the fact that their property abuts upon such controlled-access facility or for any other reason. Such highways  or streets may be freeways open to use by all customary forms of street and highway traffic, or they may be parkways from which trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles shall be  excluded.   excluded, or they may be multi-modal corridors where the absence or restriction of turning vehicle movements enables safer movement of people and goods via multiple modes of travel.

Section 5. Amend § 176, Title 17 of the Delaware Code by making deletions as shown by strike through and insertions as shown by underline as follows:

§ 176. New and existing facilities; grade-crossing eliminations.

The Department may designate and establish controlled-access highways as new and additional facilities or may designate and establish an existing street or  highway as   included within   a controlled-access facility. The State or any of its subdivisions shall have authority to provide for the elimination of intersections at grade of controlled-access facilities with existing state   and county   roads   and city or town streets   by grade separation or service road or by closing off such roads and streets at the right-of-way boundary line of such controlled-access facility; and after the establishment of any controlled-access facility, no highway or street which is not part of said facility shall intersect the same at grade, except as a temporary expedient, for which a separate resolution for each individual location shall be approved by a duly executed resolution of the Department. No city or town street,  county or  state highway, or other public way shall be opened into or connected with any such controlled-access facility without the consent and previous approval of the agency having jurisdiction over such controlled-access facility. Department.   Such consent and approval shall be given only if the public interest shall be served thereby.