Bridge Engineering Center

About the research

The Iowa Work Zone Safety Workshops have provided an opportunity for operations personnel from various cities in Iowa to improve their work zone safety and setups when conducting routine street maintenance. Many participants come from cities with a population of less than 10,000 residents and small city budgets for this type of work can sometimes lead to a lack of funding for temporary traffic control devices and the use of signs, barricades, cones, and vests that are deteriorated and may be out of compliance with the 2009 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

This project was developed to assist smaller cities with the introduction or upgrade of their temporary traffic control devices and vests to meet current standards for compliance and to make their work zones safer for workers and motorists. The program has grown from 10 applications in 2017, the initial year of the project, to more than 150 in 2025–2026.

The goal of this project is to provide an avenue for smaller cities to be able to obtain a basic work zone sign package that is in compliance with the 2009 MUTCD and to make their work zones safer for operations personnel and motorists. The package distributed consisted of the following:

• Four ROAD WORK AHEAD signs
• Four CLOSED overlays
• Two ONE LANE ROAD AHEAD signs
• Two BE PREPARED TO STOP signs
• Two Type III barricades
• Sixteen 28-in. traffic cones
• Six Class 2 safety vests
• Eight sign stands
• Ten 42-in. channelizer cones

More information on the program can be found on the Iowa LTAP Work Zone Sign Package Program page.