Economics and Finance

Urban Densities and Transit: A Multi-dimensional Perspective

Cervero, Robert
Guerra, Erick
2011

This paper investigates the relationship between transit and urban densities in the United States. An analysis of light rail systems finds that a residential density of about 30 people per gross acre near stations is needed to in order to make them among the top 25 percent of rail transit investments in terms of cost effectiveness; for heavy rail systems, the density is 45 people per gross acre. Increasing density around stations would greatly increase ridership, particularly when jobs are located within one-quarter mile of the stations and housing is located within one-half mile....

Accessible Cities and Regions: A Framework for Sustainable Transport and Urbanism in the 21st Century

Cervero, Robert
2005

This paper examines both the principle and analytical possibilities of accessibility as a platform for advancing sustainable transport and urbanism in coming years and decades. Experiences with accessibility planning are first reviewed, followed by a discussion of various measurement and analytical contexts. The paper then uses various policy contexts and case settings to probe the use of accessibility for addressing contemporary urban and regional transportation and land-use themes, including: inter-modal comparisons of job accessibility and their implications for social equity and...

Morning Commute with Competing Modes and DistributedDemand: User Equilibrium, System Optimum, and Pricing

Gonzales, Eric J.
Daganzo, Carlos F.
2011

The morning commute problem for a single bottleneck is extended to model mode choice in an urban area with time-dependent demand. This extension recognizes that street space is shared by cars and public transit. It is assumed that transit is operated independently of traffic conditions, and that when it is operated it consumes a fixed amount of space. As a first step, a single fixed-capacity bottleneck that can serve both cars and transit is studied. Commuters choose which mode to use and when to travel in order to minimize the generalized cost of their own trip. The transit agency chooses...

A Dynamic Congestion Pricing Strategy for High-Occupancy Toll Lanes

Jang, Kitae
Chung, Koohong
2010

High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes are emerging as a solution to address the underutilization of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and also means of generating revenue for state department of transportation. This paper proposes a method for dynamically determining the HOT toll price in response to the changes in traffic condition and documents procedures for estimating parameters needed for the proposed pricing strategies: revenue maximization and delay minimization. The proposed strategies have been applied to 14-miles of freeway segment in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the findings show...

Pre-hospital Care of Road Traffic Injuries in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Brown, Ted R
Geyer, Judy A
Taghavy, Azita
Mitchell, Brian P
Ragland, David R
2004

In many developing countries, transportation infrastructure development lags behind the tremendous growth in motorization. Road traffic injuries cause enormous morbidity and mortality worldwide, placing heavy burdens on global and national economies. .Underdeveloped transportation infrastructures critical to traffic safety include roadway improvement, occupant protection laws, traffic law enforcement, and emergency medical services (EMS). Highlighting one important aspect of lagging infrastructure, this article focuses on emergency medical services. This research study offers a descriptive...

Low Income Childhood Pedestrian Injury: Understanding the Disparate Risk

Johnson, Emily
Geyer, Judy A
Rai, Nirmeet
Ragland, David R
2004

A leading cause of death and injury to children is being struck by a motor vehicle. A disproportionate number of injured child pedestrians are of low socioeconomic status. The relationship between socioeconomic status and pedestrian injury is poorly understood. The existing literature is limited by the lack of pedestrian exposure data, a common measure of risk, and a clear conceptual framework for the interaction between socioeconomic status and pedestrian injury. Another issue is the limited availability of injury data. This paper proposes a model for understanding child pedestrian...

Safe Routes to Transit Program Evaluation Final Report

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

Safe Routes to Transit (SR2T) was initiated in 2004 with the adoption of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Regional Measure 2 which established a $1 increase in Bay Area bridge tolls. The intended purpose of this funding was to support various transportation projects within the region in order to reduce congestion along the seven state-owned toll bridge corridors. Consistent with this purpose, the SR2T Program was awarded $20 million to fund enhancements to increase walking and cycling to regional transit stations.SR2T funds were used for the following improvements, among others: ssecure...

SafeTREC Seminar April 10: Creating Space for Bikeways: Road Diets and Parking Removal

Brazil, John
2015

The City of San Jose's Active Transportation Program is in the midst of a ten-year plan to complete a 400-mile on-street bikeway network. With more than 250 miles implemented to date, most of the easier projects have been completed. Increasingly, remaining projects are faced with constrained right-of-way without enough space to accommodate a quality bicycle facility. To create space for new bikeways, San Jose has turned to the use of road diets (removal of a travel lane to create space for other features) and/or removal of on-street parking. These projects create a number of challenges...

SafeTREC - UCTC Seminar: ODOT Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Implementation Plan

Braughton, Matt
Griffin, Ashleigh
2014

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) identified bicycle and pedestrian crashes as a key safety focus area within Oregon’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan and sought to develop a plan to reduce frequency and severity of those crashes on all roadways throughout Oregon. Kittelson & Associates, Inc. (KAI) worked with ODOT to develop a Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Implementation Plan that identified systemic, low-cost countermeasures and prioritized locations for implementation of the countermeasures. Priority implementation locations were developed using two complementary...

Applying UrbanSim to Transportation Issues in Cities

Foti, Fletcher
2015

UrbanSim(link is external) is a software-based simulation system for supporting planning and analysis of urban development, incorporating the interactions between land use, transportation, the economy, and the environment. It is the result of over 15 years of active research, and has been applied to planning processes of over a dozen regional governments and large cities. Recent improvements to UrbanSim include an accessibility engine to compute walking-scale accessibility metrics over a metropolitan area in less than a second, and the ability to run real estate pro formas on the complete...