Toronto Papers
Addressing Pedestrians in Roadway Level of Service Analysis: A San José, California Case Study
John Brazil, Bike/Ped Program Coordinator, City of San José
Summary: As city staff plan for long-term growth, they often use roadway Level-of-Service (LOS) analysis to determine transportation impacts from development. But by focusing on the movement of motor vehicles, traditional LOS analysis fails to address pedestrian facility needs. While a few cities have proposed completely eliminating LOS analysis in favor of a different model, San José has instead modified its LOS analysis to better address pedestrian, bicycle, and transit modes. This paper summarizes how San José’s Transportation Impact Policy incentives walkable, transit friendly communities by exempting certain geographic areas from LOS requirements in exchange for improvements to pedestrian, transit, and bicycling infrastructure. ... More
Assessing Pedestrians’ Needs: The European COST 358 PQN project
Rob Methorst, Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, DVS Centre for Transport and Navigation, Safety Section
Summary: The Pedestrians’ Quality Needs (PQN) project has been established to identify what people need for their safe and agreeable mobility and sojourn in public space and to show the added value of a systems approach compared with sectoral approaches. The idea to start the project received much support in both the scientific and policy development communities. Important opportunities are developments with regard to systems approach, new spatial concepts, health awareness and ICT developments. The project context further comprises that there are several pedestrian problems on strategic, tactical and operational levels as well as some trends that will probably endanger the position and well being of the pedestrian. Pedestrians have many different needs. Basic needs like health and mobility can be seen as preconditions. Reliability and convenience are dissatisfyers and comfort and attractiveness are the satisfies, the icing on the cake. The pedestrians’ needs will be analysed and substantiated using a conceptual framework that is based on a systems approach. The issues will be studied form a number of perspectives: functional needs, perceived needs and durability and future progress. Needs will have to be translated into system requirements. Attention will be given to all elements in the system and their interrelations. Thus requirements will be determined for physical facilities, the social environment, the transportation system and with regard to supporting the pedestrians’ ability to cope independently. Here the Design for All principle (Universal Design) will be leading. It is to be expected that policy implementation can best be streamlined according to a cascade in focus of attention: first preconditions, then latent (accident) causes and lastly behavioural measures. It is assumed that every adequate policy starts with knowledge. The second precondition is the (political) willingness to change the situation. If there is willingness, then it becomes important that one is able to do something: time, money, manpower, skills, tools, authority etc. Lastly, measures have to be implemented. The project results are to cover all these aspects. With regard to the study some practical considerations apply. The first research task is to gather available information, knowledge and expertise. For this Country Reports are the instrument. Based on the outcome of the Country Reports four working groups will deal with the specific research questions, deduced from the conceptual framework. There are working groups on Functional Needs, on Perceived Needs, Durability and Future Prospects and on Coherence and Integration. A Senior Management Group, made up of the chair, vice chair and the working group leaders, is established to co-ordinate the action on a day-to-day basis. Twice a year the PQN Management Committee meets to discuss progress and decide on strategic project matters. The project is ‘work in progress’. In the paper current (September 2007) results are listed. Preliminary conclusions are: • A new comprehensive approach is taking form • Research is supported by policy makers on international level • There is great need for empirical data, but they are hardly available • For the time being expert assessment is the only real option. ... More
Assessing the Fused Grid residential street design: Travel and walking levels associated with disparate pedestrian and motor vehicle connectivity
Chris Hawkins, MA Planning Candidate, UBC School of Community and Regional Planning; Active Healthy Communities Coordinator, Thurston County Public Health & Social Services; Olympia Safe Streets Campaign
Summary: Residential street design is widely considered to be an important feature of urban form that affects local travel behaviour, yet there is little consensus about which forms of street design offer the best results on transportation outcomes. Neo-traditional designs, conventional dendritic street layouts ending in culs-de-sac, and others vie for being considered the street standard most supportive of livability and sustainability goals. This paper reports on research that attempts to assess street network patterns in relation to travel outcomes. The Fused Grid street design, offering a well-connected travel network founded on gridiron composition while adding network treatments that provide pedestrians relatively greater extent of pathway and more direct routing than vehicles when compared to typical street patterns, remains largely untested regarding its implications for travel behaviour. This study assessed the Fused Grid, building on research that has investigated travel behaviour’s association with urban form. It used empirical, quasi-experimental methods to develop evidence for the likely outcomes associated with street layouts that improve relative pedestrian connectivity. Using GIS, researchers measured the connectivity of streets, along with other influential urban form, around travel survey participants’ households. The resulting data was matched with self-reported travel and demographic factors to test for relationships using correlation and regression statistics. Methods for investigating urban form were advanced through developing and testing new variables that measure the disparity in connectivity across modes – a ratio of network density (length of sidewalk to length of street) and a ratio of route directnesses (length of pedestrian route to nearest commercial versus vehicular route length to same destination). The local travel of persons in the sample households was found to be significantly associated with the level of relative density of the local pedestrian network and the relative pedestrian connectivity of that same network of streets and paths. Previous research has established the importance of residential density, mix of uses and community design to the transportation patterns in contemporary urban areas. Many of these same studies have produced evidence of street connectivity as a factor associated with travel behaviour. This study adds to the evidence-base an understanding of the importance of more detailed, mode-specific connectivity: local travel, by foot and by car, as well as the choice of which mode to travel by, is associated with the disparity between pedestrian and vehicular transportation networks in the home neighbourhood. ... More
Cambridge Shapes a Livable Community
Jeff Parenti, Principal Traffic Engineer, City of Cambridge, USA
Summary: The walkable American city is a rare thing, but the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts has earned this title. With a broad and deep effort by citizens, elected officials, developers, the business community, academic institutions, and City staff, Cambridge built and continues to shape a place that is comfortable and convenient in which to live without a car. The ideas that lead to this result touch every square foot of the City, come from a variety of disciplines, and include elements of policy, social advocacy, community planning, enforcement, and engineering. This achievement started with the simple concept that a community should be designed around walking, cycling, and transit rather than the automobile. Measured by mode split, Cambridge is arguably the most walkable city in the United States, with over 24% of its citizens traveling to work on foot. Motivated by the environment, good health, economic development, and quality of life, Cambridge sets aggressive goals with regard to reducing car ownership and traffic while improving safety. Cambridge, Massachusetts is successfully putting pedestrians first. ... More
Can You Spy the Signs: How Walking with Children Can Change the World
Suzanne (Shoshana) Kort Litman, Way to Go! South Vancouver Island Regional Coordinator
Summary: The purpose of this breakout session is to stimulate thought and discussion about how and why children and families fit into pedestrian planning. This will include descriptions of how walking to school with children changed parents lives and will also invite participants to explore the effects walking had on them as children as well as their own experiences as adults walking with children. Participants will examine the barriers to walking they or others may have faced and how to overcome these obstacles. Three seasonal song-poems will also be presented. The performance encourages participants to recall and celebrate the deeper motivation behind why they work so hard to promote walking for all ages. ... More
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