Month: April 2015

[B’ Spokes: Coming to a random mail box near you (if approved.)]
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By Charles Pekow, Examinar
So how many people got to their recreational destinations by what form of transit? The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) at the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) wants to know and has proposed asking about it in its 2015 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). FHWA is taking public comments on the proposed survey, which needs permission from the Office of Management & Budget (OMB). FHWA announced the plan in the Federal Register of Tuesday, April 28, 2015.
FHWA wants to know who is using what form of transportation to get where they are going. FHWA plans to use the findings to help gauge factors such as safety, energy use, air pollution, congestion and safety; and to help determine research needs. It wants to know how many people are walking, biking, driving their own car or taking public transit to recreational and other destinations. FHWA also plans to share the data with state agencies so they can do the same type of evaluations.
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https://www.examiner.com/article/federal-survey-planned-on-transit-to-recreation

By Becky Pallack, Arizona Daily Star
“Ken Baarson was riding his bicycle on East Pima Street near North Sonoita Avenue in July 2012 when he thought he saw a puddle of muddy water. He tried to ride through it but the puddle turned out to be a deep pothole filled with water, caused by a leaking pipe under the pavement.”
https://m.tucson.com/news/local/city-settles-pothole-injury-lawsuit-for/article_9a75d676-c180-57e3-8ce1-b03366964186.html
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[B’ Spokes: The city of Baltimore should take notice of this liability.]

[B’ Spokes: I’m posting this because I think the speed limit on the most northern part of Roland Ave (where Tom was killed) is too high. Why does anyone “need” to travel 35 mph for ~ 1/2 mile when the rest of the street is 25 mph?]

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By Bill Lindeke, Streets MN

The problem is that for a good urban street, this muddy “middle ground” between ‘walkable’ and ‘driver’s paradise’ can sometimes be the worst of both worlds.

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The Critical Difference Between 30 and 20

I’m talking about traffic speed. If you look at the average speed of traffic on a urban commercial streets, there are a lot of things that begin to change when you slow down cars from the 30 to 35 mile per hour range into the 20 to 25 mile per hour range. Most importantly, perception, reaction time, and crash outcomes are far better at 20 than at 30 mph, while traffic flow doesn’t seem to change very much.

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https://streets.mn/2015/04/02/the-critical-ten/

-> This month, for at least the second time in a year, the Institute of Transportation Engineers has challenged its members to rethink common practices and metrics that are often thought of as objective and unbiased, but that convey values that arent necessarily in line with the greater public interest. In particular, these values emphasize the movement of vehicles above all other interests.
In an op-ed for this months ITE Journal (https://bit.ly/1yUOu8l), Jason DeGray, a licensed engineer and a member of the groups advocacy committee… argues that conventional approaches to engineering, developed over years of outward suburban growth, are particularly biased toward motorized road users–most noticeably in urban areas.
A feature article in the ITE Journals August 2014 issue, titled Decisions, Values, and Data: Understanding Bias in Transportation Performance Measures (https://bit.ly/1CeAI1D), gives an example of one such metric–level of service–explains precisely how it reflects values and biases inherent to transportation design… [https://bit.ly/1c5G4WK]