In a provocatively titled article—The Suburb That Tried to Kill the Car—Politico digs into how the Chicago suburb of Evanston reinvented itself through transit-oriented development. It is a tale with lessons for many other communities about the interplay and delicate balance of land use, transportation options, parking, zoning, tax revenues, affordable housing, and attracting new development.
planning
Frankenbike assessing the state of Seattle’s bike trails
Alta Planning + Design is now using a modified bicycle, termed the “Frankenbike,” to assess bike trail conditions. While vans equipped with specialized measurement devices are used extensively by transportation agencies to assess roadway pavement conditions, the condition of bike trails has not generally received the same level of attention.
Trombino: “System is going to shrink”
Iowa DOT Secretary Paul Trombino created a minor wave in the blogosphere last week when he told an Urban Land Institute audience that the state’s highway and rail system was too big to maintain and would need to shrink.
Caltrans achieves first state road award from Greenroads
The Presidio Parkway Phase I in San Francisco is the first state highway to be awarded a Greenroads certificate, indicating a high level of environmental sensitivity and sustainability during design and construction of the roadway. The project received a Bronze Rating. Key elements recognized by Greenroads in the project’s certification included an extensive public involvement process with special attention paid to biological, cultural, and natural resources.
State DOTs recognize benefits of supporting local land use planning
As part of a new grant program, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) recently funded three local projects aimed at better coordinating transportation and land use decisions. VTrans has partnered with the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to award approximately $200,000 each year for communities to develop plans, policies, and funding mechanisms that support local transportation options and reduce long-term infrastructure demands throughout the state.
Using Life Cycle Cost Analysis to control costs and inform project selection and development
A new report examining if and how state DOTs use Life Cycle Cost Analysis in project development and planning revealed that these types of tools see limited use by transportation agencies.
Research and practice show that compact, connected street networks can result in improved health and safety outcomes
A recent study found that traditional gridded street designs, which foster high levels of density and connectivity, have a greater association with good health than tree-like networks with their low densities and poor connectivity. More specifically, neighborhoods with compact and connected street networks and fewer lanes on major roads are positively correlated with lower rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and asthma.
What do video games and transportation planning have in common?
A new approach to the idea of visualization is using the real-time 3D tools that are normally reserved for interactive video games. A new tool developed by Spencer Boomhower of Cupola Media builds upon many of the technical tools that transportation planners traditionally use such as design criteria, flexible design techniques, and walkability analyses to build a visual model that can be understood and manipulated by the general public.
WSDOT accountability report replaces congestion with corridor capacity
Washington State Department of Transportation has been rightfully proud of their accountability and transparency with their quarterly Gray Notebook, which details system performance and project delivery. As part of that, they have issued an Annual Congestion Report. But the 2013 report has a new name and a new emphasis. Instead of highlighting congestion, the 2013 Corridor Capacity Report focuses on capacity across all modes. Rather than measuring just motor vehicle throughput, it turns its attention to moving people, regardless of mode.
Cellphone data is helping to improve travel demand modeling
The Moore County Transportation Committee, working with the North Carolina DOT, has significantly increased the accuracy of its data collection for its long-range transportation plan thanks to the cutting edge technology of aggregated cell phone data developed by AirSage . Using the technology, the county was able to determine that a bypass would not help relieve congestion on U.S. 1.