E-Bikes

Improved Analysis Methodologies and Strategies for Complete Streets

Fournier, Nicholas
Huang, Amy
Skabardonis, Alexander
University of California, Berkeley
California Department of Transportation
California Business Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
2021

Complete streets movement is a national effort to return to traditional streets in cities to enhance livability, safely, accommodate all modes of travel, provide travel choices, ease traffic congestion, and promote healthier communities. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and several local agencies in the State have developed implementation plans for complete streets. In this project, the authors developed and tested improved strategies and analysis methodologies for complete streets, taking into consideration the emerging advances in technology on control devices and...

Evaluation of a Novel Methodology to Measure Bicycle Network Connectivity

Miah, Md Mintu
Fournier, Nicholas
Skabardonis, Alexander
2025

Bicycling is among the most environmentally sustainable and economically affordable travel modes available. The popularity of bicycling activities strongly depends on the availability of well-connected bicycle networks. Existing methodologies to measure network connectivity are often purely academic, complex, subjective, or locally specific. This study aims to develop and test a reliable methodology for evaluating bicycle network connectivity. The study proposed two weighted shortest-path graph algorithms: the low-stress bike network connectivity (LSBNC), and designated bicycle network...

Bicycle Level of Service: Proposed Updated Pavement Quality Index

Huang, Jiayun
Fournier, Nicholas
Skabardonis, Alexander
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
2021

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) employs a simple five-point system to assess the quality of bikeway pavement as part of the comprehensive bicycle level of service (LOS) evaluation. Unfortunately, the ambiguous and rudimentary nature of the existing HCM Pavement Quality Index (PQI) fails to offer an objective review of bikeways across different jurisdictions. In the following analysis, first is an assessment of the PQI and bicycle LOS in the HCM. To demonstrate the impact of the pavement quality rating and the importance of a more standardized evaluation method, a sensitivity analysis is...

Bicycle Level of Service: Accounting for Protected Lanes, Traffic Exposure, and Delay

Fournier, Nicholas
Huang, Amy
Skabardonis, Alexander
Transportation Research Board
2021

Motorized traffic exposure and delay are two critical factors for bicycle level of service (LOS). Unfortunately, the current Highway Capacity Manual’s methodology for bicycle LOS fully accounts for neither. At the intersection level, motorized traffic speed and bicycle delay are not considered at all; and at the link level there is no account for one of the most effective traffic-exposure mitigating infrastructure types, separated bicycle lanes. This creates a systemic problem, enabling the design of roadways that ignore bicycle exposure and delay (i.e., comfort and safety), while giving...

Evaluate the Causes of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities and Injuries, and Establish Appropriate Countermeasures for Use in California

Arnold, Lindsay S.
Ragland, David R.
Yip, Harry
Cooper, Doug
MacLeod, Kara
Hennessey, Daniel
Mitman, Meghan
DuBose, Brooke
2010

The three primary objectives of this project were to: (1) conduct research on existing bicycle and pedestrian safety programs and guidelines in the U.S. and internationally, (2) obtain and analyze existing data related to pedestrian and bicycle safety in California, and (3) assist in developing methodologies for producing safety action plans, identifying and selecting projects, conducting education campaigns, and targeting enforcement campaigns. To meet these objectives, SafeTREC developed a set of resources and tools for use in California. These resources make information and data on...

The Analysis of Right-of-Way for Different Road Users in China: Passing-Passenger-Unit Versus Passenger-Car-Unit

Xiong, Wen, Professor
Zhang, Yuanyuan, PhD
Chen, Xiaohong, Professor
Jiang, Chao
2014

Being a public resource, the roadway space was distributed between different road users based on the Passenger-Car-Unit (PCU) concept. However, this concept tends to under estimate the capacity of public transportation and non-motorized travel. To improve the traditional car-oriented design to become more human-oriented, this study proposed a Passing-passenger-unit (PPU) and the method to observe the PPU in roadway level and area level. The PPU data were collected for urban arterials and residential areas in China to test the method and to compare the right-of-way distribution at different...

Safe Routes to School Local School Project: A Health Evaluation at 10 Low-Income Schools

Cooper, Jill F., MSW
McMillan, Tracy PhD
2010

Routes to School National Partnership (Partnership) founded the Local School Project (Project) in 2008 to assist ten schools in lowincome communities to: 1) develop and evaluate a school-based SRTS program, 2) build local capacity to apply for state or federal SRTS funding, and 3) increase safe walking and bicycling to and from the school and in the community. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiser Permanente, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided funding for the Project.This report presents the results, lessons learned and recommendations identified during the...

Comparing Methods and Data Sources for Classifying Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress: How Well Do Their Outcomes Agree?

Harvey, C
Rodriguez, DA
Fang, K
2024

Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) metrics are widely used to examine how bicyclists may perceive stress along urban streets and identify opportunities for infrastructure improvements. The intuitiveness of the original method, which condensed 18 input variables into four levels, has made LTS very popular among practitioners. Nonetheless, it can be challenging to collect all required inputs. In response, numerous alternative methods have been developed with fewer or different inputs drawn from more general sources, such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) or GIS datasets from local agencies. These...

Airports and Bicycles: What are the Obstacles and Incentives for Operators 1 to Improve Bicycle Access?

Orrick, Phyllis
Frick, Karen Trapenberg
2013

In this paper we use a case study approach to examine how airport operators are addressing bicycle access to their properties and the motivations and obstacles they face, in light of new policies to integrate bicycles, along with transit and walking, into transportation planning, design and construction, and to increase bicycles’ role in the transportation system. Eight influential elements emerged from our review of policy documents and research literature. We used them to guide interviews with key informants. The eight elements are: governance structure, location, access roads, self-...

Social (In) Equity in Access to Cycling Infrastructure: Examining the Distribution of Bike Lanes with Respect to Area-Level Sociodemographic Characteristics in 23 Large US Cities

Braun, L
Rodriguez, D
Gordon-Larsen, P
2019

Cycling advocates have recently argued that low-income and minority communities across the U.S. have disproportionately low access to bike lanes. To date, however, quantitative evidence of disparities in access to bike lanes has been limited to a small number of cities. We addressed this research gap by examining cross-sectional associations between bike lanes and sociodemographic characteristics at the block group level for 22 large U.S. cities (n = 21,843 block groups). Dependent variables included the presence (yes/no), coverage, connectivity, and proximity...