by Jonah Finkelstein, EIT PTV Vistro has been a powerful tool for us at Spack Consulting and has helped us save time creating traffic report figures and updating analyses as development plans change. Through this experience we have learned some tips and tricks that we use to help us be as effective as possible when […]
By Mike Spack, PE, PTOE Driving is a means to an end. People overwhelmingly choose to drive their cars to get somewhere – to work, the grocery store, home, daycare, the movie theater, etc. Developers are in the business of building these destinations. They need to get people into their developments for the developments to […]
By Bryant Ficek, PE, PTOE How much impact does the speed limit have on a local, residential road? That basic question has increasingly become a hot-button issue in Minnesota where these roads are usually 30 mph by state statute. Several cities and bicycle/pedestrian advocates are pushing to change the statute and lower the local speed […]
By Max Moreland, PE In the current 10th edition of ITE’s Trip Generation Manual, the categorization for a number of land uses has changed from previous editions. One of those changes is for multi-family housing. I thought I would take a closer look at the new ITE multi-family housing land uses to see how it […]
By Mike Spack, PE, PTOE As a follow-up to our comparison post Building the Right Amount of Parking Stalls between the parking generation data from TripGeneration.org vs. ITE’s Parking Generation, 4th Edition, here are average peak parking rates for fourteen land uses that aren’t in ITE’s dataset. Enjoy! Average Peak Parking Rates Land Use […]
By Bryant Ficek, PE, PTOE Late last year, we started a research project on evaluating stop sign compliance. Our goal is to determine clear lines between effective and non-effective stop sign locations. After partnering with multiple cities for this initial round of work, the data collection portion of the project is wrapping up. We have […]
By Hailey Pederson, EIT With temperatures rising around the globe, many public agencies are looking for ways to lower the dreaded “heat island effect” that often plagues major cities. Heat Islands are defined as areas in which there is a significant temperature differentiation between the neighboring urban and rural areas. That difference can be as […]
Mike Spack and Bryant Ficek have literally written a book about Traffic Impact Studies and the process from authorization to final study. We present the information we wish we had when starting our careers and hopefully have tips and refreshers that even experienced traffic engineers will find useful. This series presents the basic steps of […]
Every development goes through some process to be approved for construction. The traffic portion may include a traffic study, or a travel demand management plan, but equally important for the developer is to determine any fatal flaws, from a traffic perspective, of the proposed site plan. Check out our article on Preliminary Traffic Assessment which includes […]
By Bryant Ficek, PE, PTOE As part of our company purpose – Improve Transportation Globally – we often develop and complete research projects. We do this to help improve our work internally or help answer external questions from our clients. A recent research project completed involved Right Turn on Red at signalized intersections. In Minnesota, […]
