Over the coming weeks, you may notice a specially outfitted truck driving around Milton roads – and, in its own way, helping make those roads and sidewalks safer and more accessible to all.

 

This truck will use its high-resolution, high-tech Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, equipment to scan Milton streets and sidewalks to rapidly, accurately collect important data that could lead to transportation upgrades. While incidental data from private properties could be captured, the project's objective is to gather info about roads, sidewalks, and other areas of the public rights-of-way – and nothing beyond that.

 

LiDAR technology generates a 360-degree, colorized “point cloud” with billions of data points that generates a digital terrain (3D) model that is accurate within centimeters. So, for example, if a sidewalk is sloped too steeply or there’s a curb that’s too sharply angled, LiDAR should catch it. All this information will be collected and analyzed, the results of which will inform future American with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements.

 

And it is all part of Milton’s Safety in Action project, which you can learn more about at www.miltonga.gov/SafetyInAction. That effort – funded by a federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant – has three core components: 1) ensuring access for people with disabilities at City-owned facilities and in the public right-of-way, 2) developing countermeasures to improve safety at roundabouts (focusing first on Hopewell at Bethany Bend and Hopewell at Thompson Road), and 3) safety audits of the Freemanville and Hopewell road corridors. The LiDAR initiative is especially focused on that first element to assess ADA compliance.

 

If you have questions about this project, you can contact Rob Dell-Ross from Milton’s Public Works Department at robert.dell-ross@miltonga.gov.