U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
400 Seventh St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590

Refer to: HOTO-1

March 2, 2000

Mr. Bill Bremer
Wisconsin Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
567 D’Onofrio Drive
Madison, WI 53719-2814

Dear Mr. Bremer:

Thank you for your letter of December 21, 1999, to Mr. Donald P. Steinke regarding your request to experiment with Interstate Highway Reference Markers. Mr. Steinke recently retired and Mr. Jeffrey A. Lindley is the Acting Director for the Office of Transportation Operations.

We have had an opportunity to review your work plan and your request to experiment is approved. Requests to experiment with Interstate Reference Markers have been approved for Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) encourages the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to coordinate with these States to benefit from their experiences.

We are also interested in the impact, if any, of modifying the reference marker design. For evaluation comparison purposes, we suggest that the route shield be positioned on the top line of the reference marker and the cardinal direction be spelled out instead of abbreviated.

On page 2 of your evaluation plan, you indicate that where highway light poles are not available, the reference markers will be mounted on 4 x 4 wood posts. For safety purposes, please make sure that the posts are breakaway and the light poles are on top of the median barrier are breakaway.

For recordkeeping purposes, the FHWA has assigned an official ruling number to your request. The number and title of your request is II-248(Expr.)–"Wisconsin Interstate Reference Markers."

We look forward to reviewing the interim and final reports for this experimentation.

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey A. Lindley
Acting Director, Office of Transportation