FHWA issues letter to clarify eligibility process for cable barrier systems

Letter from the Office of Safety relates to the 2nd edition of MASH

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has issued a letter clarifying the process to obtain an eligibility letter for cable barrier systems.

The “open letter” from Michael S. Griffith, director of the Office of Safety Technologies in the Office of Safety, is addressed to members of the “highway safety hardware and roadside design community.”

“The FHWA’s Federal-aid eligibility letters are provided as a service to the States and are not a requirement for roadside safety hardware to be eligible for Federal-aid reimbursement” Griffith says in the letter.

He notes that the FHWA received questions about the eligibility letter over the past several months. The questions arose after FHWA’s Office of Safety modified the website for the letter to be consistent with the 2^nd edition of the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH), which was issued in 2016 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).

Griffith’s letter states that anyone with questions or comments should contact Aimee Zhang in FHWA’s Office of Safety, Aimee.Zhang@dot.gov.