01880989

Monograph

https://dx.doi.org/10.17226/26998

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is the author of two documents that have guided utility accommodation on highways for decades. The first document is the AASHTO Policy on the Accommodation of Utilities within Freeway Right-of-Way (the policy), which primarily applies to utility accommodation on highways that are part of the Federal Aid system. The second document is the AASHTO Guide for Accommodating Utilities within Highway Right-of-Way (the old guide), which primarily applies to utilities on state highways. Both documents originated in the 1950s and 1960s and were last updated in 2005. Historically, the policy set a standard for utility accommodation on the Federal Aid system that allowed utility crossings but strongly discouraged longitudinal installations with few extreme case exemptions. By comparison, the old guide focused on regulating methods for installing, adjusting, accommodating, and maintaining utilities within highway right-of-way. States were required to adhere to the policy until 1989, at which point it became optional as long as states developed their own utility accommodation rules that followed federal rules and were approved by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). In evaluating and approving the state rules, FHWA was mandated to use the old guide until 2000, at which point the mandate to use the guide became a recommendation. As a result of the changes in rules and regulations and the way policy and old guide are currently being used, AASHTO identified the need to merge policy and guide into one document. Merging the two documents into a Guide for Accommodating Utilities within Highways and Freeways was the primary objective of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) research project 20-123(06), targeting redundancies and necessary revisions. The secondary objective of the research project was to update materials, where needed, with emphasis on: Material that has changed or developed following the release of the previous edition; and Emerging technologies for installing and accommodating utilities in the right-of-way. To meet these objectives, researchers conducted a literature review, developed a prioritized list of manual updates, collected feedback from utility stakeholders during a peer exchange and a Transportation Research Board workshop, produced a draft of the new guide for review by the NCHRP research panel, and produced a final version of the new guide. The product of this research is a merged and updated guide for the accommodation of utilities within the right-of-way of highways and freeways, including updated information about relevant emerging technologies. The new guide uses consistent, updated language and uniform terminology. The new guide is expected to provide useful information for utility accommodation stakeholders for the next 15 to 20 years.

Submitted November 2022.

NCHRP Project 20-123(06)

English

116p

2023

NCHRP Web-Only Document

9780309702317

Digital/other

Appendices; Figures; References

Freeways; Guidelines; Highways; Policy; Public utilities; Right of way (Land)

Highways; Policy

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Apr 17 2023 3:55PM