VTrans outlines "safe systems" approach and how HSIP funds are used

Jesse Devlin, manager of the Safe Systems Section at the Vermont Agency of Transportation, told the House Transportation Committee the agency has reorganized to embed safety across planning, design and operations and is pursuing a "safe systems" approach that pairs safer roads, speeds, vehicles and post-crash care with behavior change.

Devlin described HSIP (Highway Safety Improvement Program) as the core federal-aid program used to fund infrastructure countermeasures. He explained the federal formula that allocates HSIP funds to states considers lane miles, vehicle-miles-traveled and fatalities; because allocations depend on national as well as state trends, Devlin said he has not seen large year-to-year swings in HSIP dollars.

He distinguished site-specific projects (roundabouts, signal upgrades, turn lanes) from systemic projects that address crash types across the network, and highlighted a local HSIP grant program intended to bring lane-departure countermeasures to rural town roads (warning signs, guardrail modernization, centerline rumble strips).

Devlin also described "road diets" as repurposing existing pavement (for example, sections of Route 302 near Berlin/Montpelier) to provide bike lanes and buffers, and noted right-of-way and paving-program limits can constrain larger-scale reconfigurations.

"The safe systems approach is really a data driven approach to reducing fatal and serious injuries," Devlin told the committee, emphasizing that infrastructure and behavioral efforts must be aligned and that the agency is procuring a network-screening tool to better compare community requests against safety trends and funding availability.

Committee members asked technical questions about implementation and next steps; Devlin encouraged continued local partnership as program applications are submitted to the agency.