Develop and Evaluate Long Median Barrier Gate to Assist with Emergency Response

Median barriers are commonly used to separate opposing lanes of traffic on divided highways and to separate managed lanes from general purpose lanes. Concrete Median Barriers (CMBs) are often preferred on urban freeways with narrow medians due to their minimal deflection and low maintenance. However, long, continuous runs of CMBs limit access of emergency and maintenance vehicles to the other side of a roadway or a managed lane. Implementation of crashworthy median barrier gates at these locations can maintain the desired level of median protection for motorists while offering improved cross-median access for emergency and/or maintenance vehicles. The current Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT) Barrier Gate (detailed on standard sheet BG-11) is 30-ft long and provides a clear opening of 27 ft between the mounting brackets. For this project, the research team will develop a longer median barrier gate to provide a greater clear opening for larger emergency vehicles and contraflow during evacuation operations. The research team will design the median barrier gate to operate without power and perform crash testing of the median barrier gate to verify compliance with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH).

• Record URL:
  • https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/Presto/project=0-7262

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $560,437.00
• Contract Numbers:

  0-7262

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Texas Department of Transportation

  125 E. 11th Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-2483
• Managing Organizations:

  Texas Department of Transportation

  125 E. 11th Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-2483
• Project Managers:

  Dassi, Martin

• Performing Organizations:

  Texas A&M Transportation Institute

  Texas A&M University System
  3135 TAMU
  College Station, TX  United States  77843-3135
• Principal Investigators:

  Bligh, Roger

• Start Date: 20260101
• Expected Completion Date: 20280831
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash tests; Design; Emergency vehicles; Gates; Highway safety; Median barriers; Traffic control devices
• Geographic Terms: Texas
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01973528
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Texas Department of Transportation
• Contract Numbers: 0-7262
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Dec 8 2025 9:44AM