E-Bikes

Complete Streets: From Policy to Practice in the San Francisco Bay Area

Pande, Swati, M.S.,MPP
Martinez, Martin MPP
2014

This paper describes how regional funding guidelines can affect local adoption of Complete Streets projects. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the regional Metropolitan Planning Organization for the nine-county Bay Area region in California, has developed a funding approach called the One Bay Area Grant (OBAG) for the allocation of funds for the 2012-2016 Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) and Surface Transportation Program (STP) across the Bay Area. Each jurisdiction receiving funding through OBAG was required to demonstrate compliance with Complete Streets (CS)...

Evaluation of the Safe Routes to Transit Program in California

Weinzimmer, David
Sanders, Rebecca L.
Dittrich, Heidi
Cooper, Jill F.
2014

This paper elaborates on findings from an evaluation of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Safe Routes to Transit (SR2T) program, which funded enhancements to increase walking and cycling to regional transit stations. To understand how the program influenced travel choices, behavior, and perceptions of safety and local air quality, researchers surveyed transit users and observed driver, pedestrian, and bicyclist behavior in the periods before and after the enhancements were made at multiple transit stations. Data from the treatment and control stations suggest that the streetscape and roadway...

We All Want the Same Thing Results from a Roadway Design Survey of Pedestrians, Drivers, Bicyclists, and Transit Users in the Bay Areav

Sanders, Rebecca L.
Cooper, Jill F.
2012

Pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, and public transit users all desire similar roadway design features, at least according to findings from a recent intercept survey of 537 people along a major urban corridor in the San Francisco Bay Area. This research was sponsored by the California Department of Transportation to understand traveler preferences for street design that could increase perceived traffic safety, walkability, and bikability along urban arterials, as well as encourage economic vitality through increased patronage of local businesses. In an open-ended question about street...

Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Effects of the California Safe Routes to School Program

Gutierrez, Nicolas
Orenstein, Marla
Cooper, Jill
Rice, Thomas
Ragland, David R.
2008

In the last decade, there has been an increased focus in California on encouraging children to walk and bicycle to school safely. In 1999, the California Legislature created the Safe Routes to School (SR2S) program, authorizing issuance of a competitive grant process for roadway construction projects. There has been an overall decline in the numbers of child pedestrian/bicyclist collisions in California as a whole. When compared with the control areas, the SR2S project areas did not show a greater decline in numbers of collisions. However, it is likely that the number of children walking/...

Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Strategies for UC Berkeley Campus and Periphery: Recommendations for Implementation

Schneider, Robert J.
Grembek, Offer
Braughton, Mathew
Orrick, Phyllis
Ragland, David R.
2013

The high level of pedestrian, bicycle, and transit activity on city-owned streets surrounding the UC Berkeley campus creates a dynamic social environment and gives Berkeley much of its charm. But the streets around the campus (henceforth called the campus periphery) are also places where pedestrians and bicyclists have been injured or killed in collisions with automobiles. This creates liability for drivers, the City, and the University—and worse, causes suffering for crash victims and their families. Everyone has an interest in reducing the frequency and severity of pedestrian and bicycle...

Performance Measures for Complete, Green Streets: Initial Findings for Pedestrian Safety along a California Corridor

Sanders, Rebecca
Macdonald, Elizabeth
Anderson, Alia
Ragland, David R.
Cooper, Jill F.
2011

This paper reports on research conducted by the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center and sponsored by the California Department of Transportation (“Caltrans”) to establish performance measures for pedestrian and bicycle safety and mobility along urban arterials. Although historically focused on motorized vehicle mobility, Caltrans has recently joined in a national trend to incorporate non-motorized transportation and community-level outcomes into transportation decision-making frameworks, an approach known as "Complete Streets." Recognizing that its current performance...

Space Syntax: The Role of Urban Form in Cyclist Route Choice in Central London

Raford, Noah
Chiaradia, Alain
Gil, Jorge
2007

This paper presents a new method for forecasting cyclist volume and route choice based on space syntax techniques for urban analysis. Space syntax has been shown to correlate strongly with pedestrian and vehicular trips in a number of international studies, but little research to date has focused on the role of urban form and street network design in cyclist route choice. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing the distribution of cycling trips in the central London area, focusing on a sample of work-based commuting trips. A sample of 423 cyclists from 50 organizations was combined with...

The Effects of Transportation Corridor Features on Driver and Pedestrian Behavior and on Community Economic Vitality: Final Study Report

Sanders, Rebecca L. PhD
Griffin, Ashleigh MS, MCP
MacLeod, Kara E. MHP
Cooper, Jill F. MSW
Ragland, David R. PhD, MPH
2012

This report presents the results from a multiyear effort to develop and test performance measures for evaluating the impact of landscaping and roadside features on pedestrian and bicyclist safety and mobility and economic vitality for Caltrans’ urban arterial network. The first phase of the study was a literature review, and the second phase focused on developing performance measures. The third and fourth phases focused on testing the proposed performance measures consisting of an infrastructure analysis, policy review, safety analysis and a pedestrian and bicyclist intercept survey on two...

Evaluating Research on Data Linkage to Assess Underreporting of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Injury in Police Crash Data

Doggett, Sarah
Ragland, David R.
Felschundneff, Grace
2018

Traffic safety decisions are based predominantly on information from police collision reports. However, a number of studies suggest that such reports tend to underrepresent bicycle and pedestrian collisions. Underreporting could lead to inaccurate evaluation of crash rates and may under- or overestimate the effects of road safety countermeasures. This review examined ten studies that used data linkage to explore potential underreporting of pedestrian and/or bicyclist injury in police collision reports. Due to variations in definitions of reporting level, periods of study, and study...

Develop a Plan to Collect Pedestrian Infrastructure and Volume Data for Future Incorporation into Caltrans Accident Surveillance and Analysis System Database

Zhang, Yuanyuan
Proulx, Frank R.
Ragland, David R.
Schneider, Robert J.
Grembek, Offer
2014

This project evaluates the feasibility of developing a pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure database and volume database for the California state highway system. While Caltrans currently maintains such data for motor vehicles in the Traffic Accident Surveillance and Analysis System - Transportation System Network (TASAS-TSN) database, the agency does not keep records on pedestrian or bicycle facilities. This information is crucial for improving the safety of these vulnerable road users. This project developed a proposed database structure and corresponding data collection methodology. It...