class05

Schedule
March 6: Transportation planning/engineering (Dixon, Kyte)
March 20: Social science issues (Wulfhorst, Cook, Sanyal)
March 27: Public input issues (to be determined)
April 3: Urban design, environmental impacts (Andersen, Strout)
April 10: Zoning and land use protection issues (Mason, Plaskon, Fuson)

Presentation by Mike Dixon: Context Sensitive Community Design
Context Sensitive Design: Blue Bell Properties Project Case Study
www.blueball.net
Transportation planning and design has a wider community impact than what is reflected in simply designing and building for traffic volumes. Impacts may occur that are more problematic than those that previously existed. Comprehensive planning results in solutions reflecting community needs and values. Transportation context sensitive design is a process through which community objectives are integrated thoroughly into the transportation project development process.

The case that they present is Blue Ball Properties Project, which considers (www.blueball.net):

Class notes - taken by Philip Cook
In attendance: Aaron Ament, Barbara Andersen, Dante Perez Bravo, Hua Wang, Isaak Strout, J.D. Wulfhorst, Lei Wu, Michael Dixon, Michael Kyte, Nick Sanyal, Phil Cook, Steve Hollenhorst, Walter Steed.

Kyte asked for a note taker; Cook volunteered. Kyte asked for two "reflectors;" Sanyal and Andersen volunteered.

Kyte reviewed the class schedule on the web site. The "public input" topic is scheduled from March 27, but does not yet have a presenter(s). Hollenhorst will talk to Chuck Harris and/or Bill McLaughlin about presenting. Steed will talk to Tom Hudson and Rosemary Curtain (ITD) about their interest in presenting. The March 20 presenters are willing to switch to March 27, if it fits better with guest-presenters´ schedules.

Andersen requested help for her April 3 presentation. Strout volunteered to help. Sanyal will ask Jim Kingery (CNR) if he would be willing to present his work on road work/cut reclamation.

Kyte gave a presentation on Transportation planning and engineering, concentrating on techniques used in traffic impact studies. He used the proposed development on Hwy 270 on the WA/ID state line as an example. Kyte´s complete presentation is available on the class web site.

Traffic impact studies focus primarily on motor vehicle flows and/or volumes. Peak hour volumes (veh/hr) and average daily traffic (ADT) are two common measures of flow. Headway is the reciprocal of flow rate. Measures of effectiveness include those that measure the maximum flow rate for an approach and average delay at an intersection (see presentation for details).

Steed pointed out that delay is not always "bad;" it encourages drivers to find alternate routes. If the alternate has been intentionally designed to provide a better level of service, that´s "good;" it´s where the traffic planners intended for them to go.

Traffic engineers use the Highway Capacity Manual and the Trip Generation Manual to estimate how much traffic a road can handle effectively and how many trips different types of development will produce, respectively.

The last step is mitigation, which is usually based on the impacts the study predicts. Some jurisdictions require mitigation. Kyte suggested that transportation engineers have tended to use a narrow set of mitigation strategies and need to begin thinking about different/broader ones.

Kyte briefly presented ITD´s requirements for a traffic impact analysis (see presentation).

Kyte briefly discussed access management, using Hwy 8 between White Ave. and Blaine St. as an example. Smaller developments have impacts that individually are small and often go un-studied and un-mitigated.

However, as these individual impacts accumulate, the cumulative impact of them may need to be addressed.

Dixon provided a handout on Context Sensitive Community Design. He used the Blueball development (a pharmaceutical company) in Delaware as an example of a transportation study that had included more than motor vehicle considerations (see http://blueball.net). This study attempted to develop transportation alternatives that reflected community values. It introduced flexibility into standards and levels of acceptability into desired outcomes. Dixon suggested the web site was an effective and innovative public communications strategy.

Dixon briefly outlined a four-step travel demand model used to estimate how much traffic new developments would generate.

Class discussion took place about how one moves from models of impacts to decisions about what to do. Discussion also took place about modeling assumptions that have to be made to predict impacts in the long-term or where future land uses are unknown.

Reflections on Engineering (Or The True Confessions of a social scientist and a landscape architect) - by Barb Andersen and Nick Sanyal

Part 1:
Engineered transportation systems (AKA, roads) are designed, built, used and analyzed by people, and are the most visible components of larger socio-technical mobility constructions that we human beings seem to need. Despite the obvious focus on system efficiency (flow rates, headway, and other measures of efficiency) roads are used for more than mere mobility (“driving for pleasure” and “scenic byways” come to mind). The success of an engineered system should be determined by the community of people who use it. Hence, social and cognitive issues should be involved in the designing, building, evaluating and maintenance of these systems. Sadly, such issues are rarely taken sufficiently seriously, and as a result, many systems that are built cannot be used as intended and user dissatisfaction is high. The lesson that systems are not purely technical objects seems very hard to learn, and very costly to ignore.

An initial thought is that engineering tends to reduce complexity to a series of linear (or linear appearing) constructs (model, formulas, etc.) and uses these projections to set one of the bounds on some future system. This is an attempt at predicting change from current or known data, and by accurately setting the upper limits of a system developers can avoid over-building for future (intended/desired?) demand, and thus save themselves money, or, by pinpointing the lower limits, they can avoid costly redesigns when the system becomes rapidly over-used in a fraction of its projected lifetime.

Maybe linear thinking is good. It levels the playing field (to say nothing of the parking lot), but more seriously, it is an attempt at identifying important and quantifiable elements. Linear thinking is good at making us look at the uncontrolled projections of current/historic behavior, graphically showing us what the limits of our current systems might be, the magnitude of possible engineering solutions, what mitigations are needed, and helping growth to happen. In other words, linear thinking provides the wakeup call that non-linear folks need.

But how can you separate values and preferences from objective science? On the other hand, if we include quantifications (aka, non-linear thinking) of all our important values, pretty soon we will have chaos theory personified and we will be rushing around trying to keep a butterfly from flapping its wings.

Linear thinking works best (only?) for linear systems, and I am sure much of transportation is a linear system—freeways and other rapid mobility creations, for example. But with decidedly non-linear constructions—and especially for social constructions, such as a sustainable community (whatever that is) linearity is of limited use.

Part 2:
What is efficiency? We've already touched on this in our group, that it can mean different things depending on our priorities and values. The landscape architect, Jens Jensen, wrote in 1927:

"And it will not be at all surprising if the city of tomorrow excludes the automobile. Today the automobile rules, and it destroys the parks as gathering places for the multitudes. Urban travel to the downtown areas of the large metropolis will be taken care of by public conveyance, and the art of walking will come back as a health necessity. Why should the motor car be permitted to make life unpleasant for those who are not able to afford such a luxury? It is a poor democracy which allows one crowd to destroy the freedom of another.... Efficiency is a much used word, and many, through no choice of their own, have to suffer for it."

What if we look to natural systems for examples of efficiency? Maybe we consider different timelines. Driving a SOV may be most efficient in the short run but heart bypass surgery is not very efficient either, I would argue. Can, with some advance planning, more of our trips be made by mass transit, bicycle or walking, carpooling, carsharing, motor scooter, pogo stick or inline skates?

Is this trip really necessary is another good question to ask. How are roads tied to our patterns of excessive consumption? Are we becoming more isolated in our homes which function as vessels for mass-produced goods and electronic do-dads? Where are all these delivery vans going? What are the social and environmental costs of buying online versus locally? The continual consumption of "undeveloped" land and new products - can we question the utility and efficiency of these?

Another thought: true, roads are linear by nature but can we have roads and their associated roadsides that incorporate more sustainable development practices? Stormwater management, planting native vegetation, mitigating disruption to wildlife habitat? Can one scenario be to enhance the existing roads, where needed, and do all we can to restore and maintain ecological balance?

International Journal of Sustainable Transportation
Editors-in-Chief: Dr. Chang-Ho Park, Seoul National University and Dr. S. C. Wong, The University of Hong Kong
Managing Editor: Keechoo Choi, Ajou University

Taylor & Francis Publishers is pleased to bring you the new International Journal of Sustainable Transportation. The first issue will print March 2007. The International Journal of Sustainable Transportation provides a discussion forum for the exchange of new and innovative ideas on sustainable transportation research in the context of environmental, economical, social, and engineering aspects, as well as current and future interactions of transportation systems and other urban subsystems. The scope includes the examination of overall sustainability of any transportation system, including its infrastructure, vehicle, operation, and maintenance; the integration of social science disciplines, engineering, and information technology with transportation; the understanding of the comparative aspects of different transportation systems from a global perspective; qualitative and quantitative transportation studies; and case studies, surveys, and expository papers in an international or local context. Equal emphasis is placed on the problems of sustainable transportation that are associated with passenger and freight transportation modes in both industrialized and non-industrialized areas.

Please submit manuscripts to:
Dr. S. C. Wong, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Hong Kong, E-mail: hhecwsc@hkucc.hku.hk.
Dr. Keechoo Choi, Department of Transportation Engineering, College of Engineering, University, San 5 Woncheon-Dong, Paldal-Ku, Suwon, 442-749, Korea, E-mail: keechoo@ajou.ac.kr.

For further journal information or to view additional manuscript information, visit the journal’s website: http:www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/15568318

Class 05 - 6 March 2006