Utah and Washington DOTs measure connectivity across highways under recent federal pilot program

The state DOTs in Washington (WSDOT) and Utah (UDOT) recently developed methods to evaluate the comfort, safety, and connectivity of active transportation networks, focusing on bicycle and pedestrian connectivity across highways. The studies leverage newer data sources and GIS techniques to think about how highways can create barriers for nearby communities and how major corridors can be made more permeable.

The shifting geography of sprawl

Sprawl appears to be decreasing in North America. That is, new development is adding to the share of gridded or connected streets in the street network. However, in other parts of the world, new development is increasingly taking the form of gated communities, cul-du-sacs, and other disconnected street network designs indicative of sprawl—so say the authors of a paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Guidebook for Measuring Multimodal Network Connectivity (FHWA, February 2018)

Active transportation works best when networks are well-connected and destinations compactly arranged. Yet while the field has standard metrics and methods for many other aspects of the transportation system, it performs connectivity analyses as one-offs or not at all. FHWA’s new guide doesn’t provide a new standard, but it conveniently and thoroughly summarizes many approaches to the issue in one place.

Guidebook for Measuring Multimodal Network Connectivity (FHWA, February 2018)

Active transportation works best when networks are well-connected and destinations compactly arranged. Yet while the field has standard metrics and methods for many other aspects of the transportation system, it performs connectivity analyses as one-offs or not at all. FHWA’s new guide doesn’t provide a new standard, but it conveniently and thoroughly summarizes many approaches to the issue in one place.

Big data enables new tool for analyzing and diagnosing traffic congestion

StreetLight Data, which provides trip-making data from mobile devices and smartphone apps, has just launched a new interactive Congestion Analysis tool. The tool lets subscribers identify congested roads by time of day, break down the traffic in terms of trip length, trip purpose, and other characteristics, and then focus on specific strategies to relieve demand.

A toolkit to measure and value “community severance” due to traffic

A high-traffic road can divide a community in more ways than one. Researchers haven’t always been able to show what extent such roads can harm a community’s access, health, or quality of life. A new study outlined in the latest volume of the Journal of Transport and Health looked at one corridor to test tools to measure just that.