Road Safety Improvement Program on Indian Reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota

Tribal communities recognize the need to improve roadway safety. A five-step methodology was developed by the Wyoming Technology Transfer Center, Local Technical Assistance Program (WYT2/LTAP), to improve roadway safety on Indian reservations. This methodology was implemented initially on the Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR); the success of this implementation was the impetus for the Wyoming Department of Transportation, Cheyenne, to fund three systemwide, low-cost safety improvement projects. Given the success of the program on the WRIR, tribes across the country became interested in the program. WYT2/LTAP and the Northern Plains Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NPTTAP) assist tribes to implement this program on their reservations in the Great Plains region and developed criteria to identify tribes to participate. Reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota applied to NPTTAP, and three tribes were accepted to participate: the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST), the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Although work had begun on all three reservations, this study focused on the implementation on the roadway safety program by the SRST. Members of the SRST were located in North Dakota and South Dakota, and crash data were collected from each state separately. Because the reporting and years of data differed, several analyses were performed to identify trends in crashes on the SRST. The South Dakota portion of the reservation was compared with statewide rural roads and with the WRIR because the two reservations were of similar size and character. Many challenges and differences were identified through the analysis, which demonstrated that a single procedure would not work for all reservations. Through extensive coordination and collaboration with the tribes and government agencies, WYT2/LTAP and the technical assistance program centers could provide the technical assistance that the tribes would need to develop their own road safety improvement programs.