How Sweden Has Redesigned Streets To Route Around Bad Human Behavior

CHARLIE SORREL 12.13.16 1:00 PM

If a car almost hits a pedestrian when the car is turning right on a red, whose fault is it? According to Matts-Åke Belin, Sweden's traffic safety strategist, the blame is on whoever designed the intersection.

"Why should we put the whole responsibility on the individual road user, when we know they will talk on their phones, they will do lots of things that we might not be happy about?" Belin told CityLab in an interview. "So let’s try to build a more human-friendly system instead."

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Portland City Council Votes For Planning Decisions

When it comes to planning a city, trips matter. Estimates about the amount of trips generated by a transportation project or new development are what dictate not just what our redesigned streets will look like, but also how we pay for them.

One of the ways the City of Portland pays for infrastructure is by charging developers a fee based on the impact their new building will have on the transportation system. These fees — known as Transportation System Development Charges, or just TSDCs for short — are based on a model that estimates how many trips a new development will generate.

There’s just one small problem: The methodology is centered almost exclusively around cars. The Portland Bureau of Transportation wants to change that.

At City Council today commissioners unanimously passed an ordinance (PDF) allowing PBOT to use a methodology that uses “person trips” – meaning trips made not just by people in cars and trucks but also foot, by bike and in transit vehicles.

Brian Davis, a transportation analyst at Lancaster Engineering, said the methodology Portland currently uses is based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Trip Generation Manual which he calls, “very car-oriented.” “All our land-use and transportation planning is based on this manual which relies on data collected in suburbs in the 80s and 90s.” Therefore the data, Davis says, “Is massively overstating the number of car trips a development will result in.”

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How A Philly Guy, Built His Own Bike Lane

After visiting a friend in the hospital twice -- for two bike crashes in the course of a single year – Dave Brindley was moved to action.

Brindley, 37, set about gathering stray traffic cones left by Verizon, PGW, and the Philadelphia Water Department, and set up a makeshift protective barrier.

“I had no idea if it would be there the next day or not,” he said. “But it’s been two years. By now, the police think it’s theirs.”

This low-tech intervention represents one of the more successful examples of a national movement by pedestrians and cyclists who have tired of waiting for local governments to make what they view as necessary infrastructure upgrades.

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VDOT Names New Research Director

RICHMOND – The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has selected Catherine C. McGhee, P.E., a 23-year VDOT veteran, as director of the agency’s research program at the Virginia Transportation Research Council, based in Charlottesville.

“From driverless vehicles to roadway paving materials to bridges, the Virginia Transportation Research Council is committed to conducting research in order to find innovative solutions to transportation issues in Virginia and beyond,” said Charles Kilpatrick, VDOT commissioner.

“Cathy McGhee’s impressive background and experience in traffic engineering and system operations, intelligent transportation systems, and data and performance measurement will be vital as VDOT moves to be a leader in innovation and technology.”

McGhee has been with the Virginia Transportation Research Council since 1993. Most recently she was associate director for safety, operations and traffic engineering, responsible for research projects that focus on enhancing the operation of Virginia’s highway infrastructure.

Before joining VDOT, she was an associate with Barton-Aschman. McGhee received her bachelor’s degree fromCalifornia Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and master’s degree and from the University of Virginia, both in civil engineering.

She has held a professional engineer’s license in Virginia since 2004.

McGhee’s has led VDOT’s research program on connected and automated vehicles and worked with VDOT staff and university partners to develop, test, and deploy equipment and applications within the Virginia Connected and Automated Corridors to advance VDOT’s mission of delivering safe and efficient mobility.

As a part of this effort, she has participated in the Virginia Secretary of Transportation’s Automated Vehicle Work Group and the Unmanned Aerial Systems Work Group.

Cathy currently serves as the secretary for the Transportation Research Board Committee on Regional Transportation Systems Management and Operations (AHB10), a stakeholder for the National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), a member of the Mid-Atlantic Transportation Sustainability University Transportation Center Advisory Board, and a member of the Advisory Council for the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at N.C. State.

VDOT’s research program

VDOT has supported a strong innovative research program for more than 65 years. Its Virginia Transportation Research Council continues to build on this strong tradition by increasing emphasis on implementation of research findings.

Located at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, the Virginia Transportation Research Council collaborates with Virginia universities and conducts studies across all aspects of surface transportation.

The Virginia Transportation Research Council pursues innovation to benefit all who use Virginia’s roads, rail and transit. For more information, see http://vtrc.virginiadot.org/.

VDOT Partners With Waze Connected Citizens Program To Improve Travel On Virginia’s Roadways

RICHMOND – The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Waze, the real-time, crowdsourced navigation app, have launched a partnership to improve travel information. Designed to share publicly available traffic information, the partnership will be facilitated through the Waze Connected Citizens Program. Established as a two-way data share, Waze will provide VDOT with real-time, anonymous, Waze-generated incident and slow-down information directly from the source: drivers themselves. This data will complement VDOT’s 511Virginia traveler information tools. In exchange, the agency will provide real-time verified construction (work zones), crash and road closure data from 511Virginia to Waze. “Virginia welcomes innovative partnerships of all kinds that bring the best of what the public and private sectors has to offer, which ultimately benefits the public,” said Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne. “We’re excited to partner with an international industry leader like Waze to continue to offer only the best real-time traffic information resources to Virginia’s travelers.” “Technologies and methods of receiving and sharing information continue to evolve and transform significantly,” said VDOT Commissioner Charles Kilpatrick. “VDOT has provided traveler information to Virginia’s citizens through our 511Virginia program since 2005, and we welcome this partnership with Waze to provide the best information possible to travelers.” The Waze map evolves with every driver and data point it receives about potential delays to their commutes. The Connected Citizens Program yields even more data, giving local citizens a greater ability to circumvent road closures and traffic jams within the app. VDOT can also provide Wazers with advanced notice of planned events such as parades, races or construction that will affect their daily routes. “Waze is only as strong as the information it receives from its users and partners,” said Adam Fried, New Business Development Manager at Waze. “VDOT will be able to use these anonymous insights to further promote safer roads. In exchange, VDOT is providing critical road closure and incident data to Waze, helping Wazers better circumvent major traffic events and real-time traffic blocks.” To find out more about Connected Citizens visit http://waze.com/ccp. To download the free Waze app for iOS or Android, visit www.waze.com Also, real-time information about traffic, incidents and congestion on Virginia roads is available at 511Virginia.org. Download VDOT’s free 511 app, or call 5-1-1 from any phone in Virginia.

Two Words Would Make Our Cities More Livable: Pedestrians First

What's the single most important factor in a livable city? Pedestrians. After all, even if we commute to work in a BMW, we start and finish our journey as pedestrians. "Every single trip begins with walking," says Gil Penalosa, founder of the livable cities advocacy group 8 80 Cities. That's why any plan to make cities better start with the single step we all take when we leave home.

To improve our cities, Penalosa says, we need to pay attention to four "pillars"— walkability, bikeability, public spaces, and public transportation. Get the right balance, and you end up with somewhere like Copenhagen, where commuter parking lots have become public squares, ringed with businesses and cafes, and cyclists feel so safe that it's common to see "a woman biking to a business meeting dressed exactly as if she were driving," says Penalosa in an article published by the Knight Foundation.

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The Ideology Of Traffic

The greatest accomplishment of any ideology is to not be considered an ideology; to be a belief system that is not considered a belief system. Millions of Americans went to church yesterday and every one of them knew their experience constituted a belief, that others in the world believe other things. It is when beliefs are not recognized as such that things get scary.

Last week I was in Washington State speaking to a group of mostly transportation engineers and technical professionals. My presentation was all about questioning the core beliefs of the profession, of helping the people in attendance recognize that many of their core truths are actually beliefs, and that there are competing beliefs that they should consider.

For example, when engineers design a street, they begin with the design speed. They then determine the projected traffic volume. Given speed and volume, they then look to a design manual to determine the safe street section and then, once a cross section is selected, determine the cost. This approach to design – speed then volume then safety then cost – reflects the ideology of the profession, an internal belief system so foundational that they don’t recognize it as the application of a set of values.

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