Transportation Equity

Optimizing Comprehension of Changeable Message Signs (CMS)

Greenhouse, Daniel
2007

The goal of this research was to assist the California Department of Transportation (DOT) in optimizing the message content and presentation within changeable message signs (CMS). Optimized content will improve information transfer while at the same time minimizing the likelihood of congestion owing to slowing by motorists attempting to read the message. The research was restricted to simulated signs displaying 16 characters in each of three lines, representing permanent CMS displays, or signs containing only 8 characters in each of three lines, as is the case for portable CMS displays....

Support for Market-Based and Command-and-Control Congestion Relief Policies in Latin American Cities: Effects of Mobility, Environmental Health, and City-level Factors

Wang, X
Rodriguez, D
Mahendra, A
2021
Public support for the implementation of congestion relief policies is critical for the policies’ technical and political success. To identify the personal, social, and city-level factors associated with higher acceptance towards such policies, this study uses a 2016 survey of 8178 residents from 11 cities across 10 Latin American countries collected by the Development Bank of Latin America (Corporación Andina de Fomento or CAF). We examined support for two demand-side approaches to managing the traffic congestion externality: congestion pricing – a market-based approach, and driving...

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...

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...

Social (In) Equity in Access to Cycling Infrastructure: Cross-sectional associations Between Bike Lanes and Area-Level Sociodemographic Characteristics in 22 large US cities

Braun, L
Rodriguez, D
Gordon-Larsen, P
2018
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 is limited to a small number of cities. We address this research gap by examining cross-sectional associations between bike lanes and...

Advancing Road User Charge (RUC) Models in California: Understanding Social Equity and Travel Behavior Impacts

Lazarus, Jessica
Broader, Jacquelyn
Cohen, Adam
Bayen, Alexandre
Shaheen, Susan
2022

The State of California is currently moving forward with a road usage charge (RUC) demonstration program, creating promising research opportunities to examine the potential social equity implications of a shift from a gas tax to a RUC system in California. RUC . To this aim, this study investigates the relative burden of gas taxes and mileage-based RUC across various sociodemographic and geographic dimensions by examining key trends in road use, vehicle ownership, fuel consumption, use of RUC-related technologies, and attitudes/opinions related to RUC adoption. Expert interviews were...

Credit-Based Congestion Pricing: Equilibrium Properties and Optimal Scheme Design

Jalota, Devansh
Lazarus, Jessica
Bayen, Alexandre
Pavone, Marco
2023

Credit-based congestion pricing (CBCP) has emerged as a mechanism to alleviate the social inequity concerns of road congestion pricing - a promising strategy for traffic congestion mitigation - by providing low-income users with travel credits to offset some of their toll payments. While CBCP offers immense potential for addressing inequity issues that hamper the practical viability of congestion pricing, the deployment of CBCP in practice is nascent, and the potential efficacy and optimal design of CBCP schemes have yet to be formalized. In this work, we study the design of CBCP schemes...

Documentation of the Irvine Integrated Corridor Freeway Ramp Metering and Arterial Adaptive Control Field Operational Test

McNally, M. G.
Moore, II, James E.
MacCarley, C. Arthur
2001

A systematic evaluation of the performance and effectiveness of a Field Operational Test (FOT) of an integrated corridor-level adaptive control system was attempted from fall 1994 through spring 1999 in the City of Irvine, California. The FOT was conducted by a consortium consisting of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the City of Irvine, and two private sector consultants, National Engineering Technologies, Inc. (NET) and Farradyne Systems, Inc. (FSI, now PB/FSI), with the City of Irvine as the lead agency. The FOT was cost-share funded by the Federal Highway...

The Sociodemographics of Land Use Planning: Relationships to Physical Activity, Accessibility, and Equity

Aytur, SA
Rodriguez, DA
Evenson, KR
Catellier, DJ
Rosamond, WD
2008

Little is known about relationships between attributes of land use plans and sociodemographic variations in physical activity (PA). This study evaluates associations between policy-relevant plan attributes, sociodemographic factors, and PA in North Carolina. Results suggest that land use plans that included non-automobile transportation improvements and more comprehensive policies to guide development were positively associated with both leisure and transportation-related PA. However, residents of counties with lower-income levels and higher proportions of non-white residents were...

The Role of Employment Subcenters in Residential Location Decisions

Cho, EJ
Rodriguez, DA
Song, Y
2008

In this paper we employ Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, a polycentric city with 10 employment subcenters, as a case study to explore the role of employment subcenters in determining residential location decisions. We estimate discrete choice models of residential location decisions: conditional logit models and heteroscedastic logit models with both the full choice set and sampled choices. We ënd that access to certain employment subcenters, measured in terms of generalized cost, is an important determinant of households’ residential location decisions. The proximity to speciëc...