Mike on Traffic

Review of ITE's Promoting Sustainable Transportation Through Site Design

The Institute of Transportation Engineers published a recommended practice at the end of 2010 titled Promoting Sustainable Transportation Through Site Design (developed by the Canadian District of ITE, lead by the consultant the IBI Group).  The major theme running through the report is the idea of designing a site for all modes of travel (walking, cycling, transit, and carpooling in addition to the passenger car).  If you work for a government agency who approves site designs, I think the report is worth buying.  There is a lot of good information related to policies agencies could implement.

From an owner/site designer/transportation consultant perspective, a few figures from the report really highlight the worthwhile information.  I think the following five graphics capture most of the elements that should be thought through for specific development sites.

Relevance to Travel Mode

This figure is primarily for developments that serve as destinations (offices, commercial retail, civic uses, etc.), not origins (housing developments).  The figure shows how certain design elements impact each mode of transportation.

 Site Organization

This figure highlights how elements within a development should be oriented to foster effective multi-modal transportation.

 

Site Design

These figures shows specific site design elements that will enhance the multi-modal transportation system.

Review of Rapid Plan Software (for traffic control plans)

Jodi Soper with Invarion let me know about their software package Rapid Plan - a standalone software package (it can be integrated with CAD or GIS software) used to create temporary traffic control plans.  I'd never heard of it.

When I started my career 15 years ago, I prepared a lot of signing/striping plans for roadway reconstruction projects.  I also prepared plans for detour signing and temporary traffic control plans for the contractors to follow while they were building the road. It's been years since I've done one of these plans though.

I was blown away while watching the demo.  It looks like this software would save at least 75% of the time I used to spend creating these types of plans. I'd be interested to hear from any current users of Rapid Plan (or competing products like Cone Zone).

I'm thinking about testing out the software for my traffic studies.  It looks like a quick way to show traffic control improvements on an engineered/to scale drawing.

Jodi told me they don't have set pricing, but work on a quote basis because they sell the software around the world and have different modules to represent local traffic control practices.  However she did tell me it costs less than AutoCAD, which my quick online search put at about $4,000 per license.  Jodi promised a great deal for me or you readers if we email her directly (jodi@rapidplan.com).  This is definitely a niche software, but I'm guessing it would have a very quick payback for a regular user.

Guidelines for the Amount of Bicycle Parking Needed at Different Land Uses

I haven't seen any scientific studies documenting how much bicycle parking is used at different kinds of developments (similar to Parking Generation for vehicles).  Many city ordinances have requirements for how many bicycle parking spaces (racks or storage lockers) are needed for different kinds of developments.  For instance, Minneapolis has very thorough requirements for bicycle parking in Section 541.180 of their municipal code.

A quick reference for bicycle parking requirements can be found in the Institute of Transportation Engineers' Promoting Sustainable Transportation Through Site Design.  Although no reference is given to back up these requirements, here are the minimum recommended bicycle parking supply standards from Table 3-2 -

Minimum Number of Bicycle Parking Spaces per Use

• Primary or Secondary School - 10% of the number of students, plus 3% of the number of employees
• College or University - 6% of the number of students, plus 3% of the number of employees
• Commercial/Retail or Office - 1 space per 2,700 to 3,300 square feet
• Recreation Center - 10 to 20% of the design capacity of visitors plus employees
• Movie Theater or Restaurant - 5 to 10% of the number of seats plus employees
• Industrial - 5 to 10% of the number of employees
• Multi-unit Housing - 1 space per 1 to 2 apartments

I'd love to hear if anyone out there has bicycle parking requirements that are based on field collected data.

Steps to Traffic Calming Studies

I watched the traffic calming webinar sponsored by Traffic Logix yesterday.  Fehr & Peers did a nice job.  One of the bigger takeaways for me was the process they apply to traffic calming projects (traffic calming is the process of applying physical treatments in neighborhoods to reduce the amount of traffic and/or reduce travelling speeds on neighborhood roads).  Here's the typical process they apply to this type of engineering study, with a comment or two added by me -

1. Collect Data - Traffic volumes, travel speeds, traffic control device locations, crash data, and stop sign compliance.
2. Observe Existing Conditions - Watch traffic at existing traffic calming treatments already in place in the neighborhood or city to see what works and what doesn't.  Try to find interactions between all modes of travel (pedestrian/bicycle/vehicle).
3. Present the Toolbox of Traffic Calming Treatments to engaged citizens and policy makers.  TrafficCalming.org is a good resource.
4. Community Outreach and Agency Coordination - Charrettes are a common way to engage citizens and policy makers to get to the heart of the perceived problem.  Neighborhood surveys, websites, open houses, and walking tours are also commonly used.  It is very important to engage the fire and police departments.  Traffic calming devices slightly degrade response times.  This is a trade-off the policy makers need to weigh.  The fire or police department can derail the whole process if they aren't part of the process and on board.
5. Recommend Improvements - Often a phased approach is recommended.  Start small and layer on measures until the desired outcome is achieved.
6. Implementation - Residents often don't like these measures after they are built (they don't realize the pain of driving over speed humps five times a day until they are implemented).  It is wise to do a trial run with temporary installations.  Traffic Logix sells a lot of temporary, rubber products for this purpose.  Cones and barrels can be used for some of the treatments, but they don't do as good a job of simulating traffic circles, bumpouts, etc.  Traffic Logix did sponsor the webinar, but using their products is a good idea. 
7. Follow-up - Collect "after" data to determine how well things are working.  Changes may need to be made.  This can be an iterative process.  Before/after data is also useful to define local effectiveness of different treatments for future projects.

Spreadsheet with Parking Generation Data

In October I wrote about ITE's (Institute of Transportation Engineers) 4th Edition of the Parking Generation report here.  I promised to post later in the fall with a spreadsheet containing a summary of the data.  Winter began officially on December 21st  (although Minnesotans had snow much earlier than that), so I'm a few weeks late in delivering this file - (REMOVED BASED ON ITE LEGAL REQUEST).    (DISCLAIMER - there's no guarantee that the data in the spreadsheet 100% matches the data in the Parking Generation report.  We did our best with quality control, but mistakes happen.  Please let us know if you catch any typos.)

The spreadsheet includes average and 85th percentile rates for the peak parking period for each land use.  Please note we colored cells to highlight rates with small data sample sizes (see the key at the bottom of the spreadsheet). 

Thanks to Max Moreland (who recently joined me at Spack Consulting) for putting this together.  We hope you find this useful!