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New Barriers to Offer Better Worker, Motorist Protection As part of the NTTA’s continued focus on safety, the Authority is purchasing a new portable barrier system designed to protect maintenance workers during short-term projects, where using a semi-permanent concrete barrier is not feasible.
“The safety of our employees is absolutely number one for us,” said J.C. Wood, NTTA director of maintenance. “Protecting our employees is top priority.”
The NTTA began mandating use of concrete barriers for all long-term projects about two years ago, during conversion of the Dallas North Tollway’s Wycliff plaza to the ZipCash system.
NTTA officials then began searching for a way to protect employees and contractors working alongside traffic in temporary work zones.
“Ordinarily, we would park vehicles behind the workers to protect them from oncoming traffic and use cones and barrels between the workers and lanes of traffic,” Wood said. “But if a vehicle loses control and moves sideways, those cones and barrels will not protect the workers.”
The new system, which officials hope will arrive in two or three months, offers positive protection along the full length of the work zone, Wood said. The system incorporates a smooth steel beam with an impact cushion on the end facing oncoming traffic. The barrier is towed into place using a semi-trailer truck.
Federally required crash tests showed that the barrier can effectively redirect and absorb the impact of a 2 1/2–ton vehicle (such as a passenger vehicle or a pickup truck) going more than 60 miles per hour. The system, which costs roughly $275,000, represents the state-of-the-art in positive work zone protection while also protecting the occupants of a vehicle that impacts the barrier.
“This is only the third or fourth one to be put in use in the nation,” Wood said.
Once workers begin using the new barrier, NTTA officials plan to order a second system. Modifications to the custom-designed barrier may be made based on safety successes of the first system.
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