Chapter 3: Project Development
Anchor: #i1000051Section 1: Overview
Anchor: #i1000056Influencing Factors
Each fiscal year at the beginning of the Highway Safety Plan development process, traffic safety planners consider a number of factors in determining project priorities and areas of emphasis. These factors are:
- federal legislation
- state statutes
- federal and national priorities and goals
- state and local problems.
Other influences can be federal and state legislative bodies, community-based organizations, local and national interest groups, and local governments. Projects can be proposed by members of any of these organizations, directly or indirectly. The key goal is to assure that all projects in the Texas Highway Safety Plan are data driven, and not solely responses to political or community pressures.
From time to time, Congress designates or earmarks federal highway safety funds for specific purposes and uses. Projects developed in response to these earmarked funds must be data driven as well, with the earmarked funds dedicated to the areas of the state with the greatest threat to public safety.
Anchor: #i1000096Highway Safety Program Areas
National priority areas are established in 23 CFR, Chapter 11, Section 1204.3. The national priority areas are also state priority areas and are included in the Texas Highway Safety Plan (HSP). With the addition of Commercial Vehicle Safety as a state priority area, the HSP typically addresses 14 program areas. These program areas then form the framework for providing detailed descriptions of the selected traffic safety projects. For a complete listing of the HSP program areas with their respective and applicable federal two- or three-letter alpha character accounting code designators, see “Program Areas” in Chapter 2, Section 2.
The following section lists the strategies, goals, and performance measures for each of the program areas.