The 4th Urban Street Symposium and 2012 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Midwestern District Meeting will take place June 24-27 in Chicago at the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza (350 West Mart Center, Chicago). The symposium is intended to explore improvements in urban and suburban street design practices, encourage discussion on emerging street designs, and to facilitate the transfer of research findings on urban street design and design processes to state agencies and local governments.   The conference is sponsored by the ITE and TRB.

The Will County Board of Commissioners approved a construction contract for two sections of the DuPage River Trail, as highlighted in the Spring 2012 edition of the Forest Preserve of Will County’s newsletter, The Citizen.  One section is in Naperville, near 95^th Street and Naperville Road to near Knock Knolls Park in the DuPage River Preserve.  Last year, this trail connection was awarded $1.37 million in Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement(CMAQ)  program funds.  This trail will link to a bicycle facility being built as part of an extension of 95^th Street over the DuPage River.

The other segment to be constructed is in the Village of Plainfield, from  Black Road (County Highway 56) to Sunset Ridge Park near the Hammel Woods Preserve.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has released the fourth edition of its Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities, last published in 1999.

According to AASHTO, the guide “provides information on how to accommodate bicycle travel and operations in most riding environments. It is intended to present sound guidelines that result in facilities that meet the needs of bicyclists and other highway users. Sufficient flexibility is permitted to encourage designs that are sensitive to local context and incorporate the needs of bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorists.”

The guide is currently available for pre-order through AASHTO and is expected to ship in early June. The new edition of guide will also be available as a download. 

Last month, the Chicago City Council approved a plan to partner with Portland, Oregon-based Alta Bicycle Share to operate the City’s first large-scale bike-sharing program until 2027.  The bike share program received $18 million in Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement program funding for the first phase, which calls for 3,000 bikes and 300 docking stations to be installed by the end of 2012, with an additional 1,000 bikes and 100 stations in 2013 to be funded by a U.S. Department of Transportation TIGER grant.

The Chicago Tribune covers the City of Evanston’s plan to install a protected bike lane, or “cycle track,” on Church Street, between Dodge Avenue and the lakefront.  For more information on protected bike lanes, see the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Urban Bikeways Design Guide.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) will host a free webinar on raised median islands and pedestrian safety on May 30 from noon to 1:30 p.m. CT.  The webinar will discuss design considerations for raised median islands, address barriers to implementing these countermeasures, and present case studies of agencies that have been using these treatments to improve pedestrian safety.  Presentations will be by Charlie Zegeer (UNC Highway Safety Research Center), Sheila Lyons (Oregon DOT), Gary Sokolow (Florida DOT), and Jack Ecklund (City of University Place).  Advance registration is required and for more information, visit the PBIC website.

The Mineta Transportation Institute has released a report examining practices and program characteristics associated with high levels of non-motorized travel.  The study features case studies from three California cities – Davis, Palo Alto, and San Luis Obispo. These case studies are intended to illustrate how urban communities can better integrate non-motorized transportation modes into the existing physical infrastructure, as well as reach out to and educate community residents and employees on the benefits of walking and cycling.

The study recognizes that, while many manuals, handbooks, and guides on planning and designing bicycle and pedestrian facilities already exist, there is little indication about which of the varied treatments in these guides work well for users. While some cities are highly acclaimed for deploying bicycle-friendly and walking facilities, mostlag behind and lack the resources to assess what is needed to integrate these facilities with other means of travel. This study attempts to bridge that gap.

A recent article in the journal Transportation analyzes the variation in bike commuting in large American cities, with a focus on assessing the influence of bike paths and lanes on bike commute rates.  Using new data on the total length of such bikeways in 90 cities and applying various statistical analysis methods, the study finds thatcities with a greater supply of bike paths and lanes have significantly higher bike commute rates, even when controlling for land use, climate, socioeconomic factors, gasoline prices, public transportation supply, and cycling safety.  The analysis also revealed that cities with safer cycling, lower auto ownership, more students, less sprawl, and higher gasoline prices had more residents cycling to work. By comparison, annual precipitation, the number of cold and hot days, and public transport supply were not statistically significant predictors of bike commuting in large cities.

The City of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has released a before and after report with data demonstrating that implementation of a road diet (on Nickerson Street, completed in August 2010) resulted in improved safety for all users. According SDOT, the project, completed in August 2010, reduced collisions by 23 percent, helped prevent speeding, and did not result in traffic diversion to other streets.

With funding from the Martin County, Florida Community Redevelopment Agency, Dan Burden’s Walkable and Livable Communities Institute has created three short educational videos to help the general public understand the basics of walkability, road diets, and head-out angled parking. 

The Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2264 is dedicated to studies on topics related to pedestrian planning and safety.  The volume contains 20 papers exploring topics such as automatic pedestrian detectors, sign visibility for pedestrians, advance yield markings, midblock pedestrian crosswalks, signal-based countermeasures for pedestrian safety, and other topics.

In this volume, readers will find papers that examine phase optimization at intersections to minimize vehicle and pedestrian delays; crossing behaviors and activity of pedestrians at signalized intersections; the lower rates of physical activity by low-income and minority populations; and measurement of greenway use in Cary, North Carolina.  In addition, this volume highlights walking behavior prediction; probability models for pedestrian injury severity; pedestrian safety programs in central areas of large cities; risk of fatality in vehicle–pedestrian crashes; estimation of frequency and length of pedestrian stride in urban environments; and accessibility of complex intersections.

A project to extend Anderson Road and build a bridge carrying it over Metra tracks near the Elburn station will provide accommodation for bicyclists and pedestrians, as well as direct access to the Elburn Metra Station, fulfilling important goals in CMAP’s GO TO 2040 plan.  A Daily Herald article covers Kane County’s current negotiations with the Village of Elburn over the construction and maintenance of the proposed roadway and bridge.

According to a City of Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) press release, the City installed or restriped39 miles of on-street bikeways in 2011.  According to CDOT reported that, in 52 different projects, there were: 17 miles of new bike lanes; nine miles of restriped bike lanes; nine miles of new marked shared lanes; two miles of new protected bikes lanes; one mile of new buffered bike lanes; and one mile of restriped marked shared lanes were completed.

CDOT also installed its first protected and buffered bike lanes, its first bike boxes, bike parking corral, and new bicycle-friendly intersection designs during the last year.  For more information, visit the CDOT Bicycle Program website.

The Chicago Metro Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA), in conjunction with the Illinois Technology Transfer Center (T2), the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, and FHWA will be offering a one-day seminar on proposed Public Rights-of-Way Guidelines (PROWAG). Participants will learn about the new ADA guidelines for work within the public right-of-way. Participants will also receive a copy of the current Proposed Final Rule, Special Report on Accessible Public Right-of-way, and student handbook that will help you plan and design current and future projects.

This seminar includes presentations by the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, Federal Highway Administration – IL Division, and Illinois Department of Transportation that will provide a history of the American’s with Disability Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) that impact highway agencies and provide an overview of proposed Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines (PROWAG).

The registration fee is $75 for APWA members, $90 for non-members, and includes hand-outs, breakfast snacks and coffee, and a certificate of attendance with 6.0 PDH's. $10 of the registration fee will be applied towards the 2013 Congress fund.  The seminar takes place March 21, 2012 at IDOT District 1 offices in Schaumburg.

Lunch is not included. Students can bring a brown bag lunch or eat at local establishments.

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC), in conjunction with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), is offering a free webinar on pedestrian safety and accessibility considerations at modern roundabouts.  Modern roundabouts are an FHWA proven safety countermeasure and have been documented to reduce vehicle injury and fatal crashes when compared to signalized intersections.  However, the safety of roundabouts for pedestrians is less clear, and significant concerns about the accessibility and safety of roundabouts for pedestrians who are blind have often been raised.

This webinar will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, March 7, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. CT.  Register at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/941771786.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety has launched a new website that includes links to detailed descriptions, related research studies, and evaluations of nine research-proven countermeasures -- superseding the 2008 guidance on the consideration and implementation of proven safety countermeasures -- which are considered highly effective and whose use should be encouraged. The nine countermeasures highlighted on the site address crashes that occur in the focus areas of intersections, pedestrians, and roadway departure.

The website provides a direct link to the January 12, 2012 memorandum from the Acting Associate Administrator for Safety to division administrators on the promotion of the implementation of proven safety countermeasures.

A new study has been released by the National Center for Safe Routes to School (NCSRTS), which explores and attempts to understand how school-level dynamics, which underlie the planning and implementation of SRTS programs, relate to the percentage of students who walk and bicycle between home and school.

The study begins with the question: Do successful Safe Routes to School programs have something in common?  It’s analysis identifies the following four key factors that successful SRTS programs share:

1. Identifying an in-school leader, often the principal, to champion SRTS.
2. Conducting activities that reinforce walking and bicycling, such as frequent walker/biker programs and Walk to School Day events.
3. Generating parent support for SRTS.

Establishing policies that support SRTS, such as early dismissal for students who walk or bicycle home from school.

In a dissertation entitled “Understanding Sustainable Transportation Choices: Shifting Routine Automobile Travel to Walking and Bicycling,” Robert Schneider, at the University of California Berkeley, examined factors associated with the decision to walk or bicycle rather than drive for short, routine trips.   The author used an intercept survey to gather travel data from 1,003 customers at retail pharmacies in 20 San Francisco Bay area neighborhoods.

The study results showed that automobile use was negatively associated with higher employment density, smaller parking lots, and metered on-street parking in the shopping district.  Walking was positively associated with higher population density, more street tree canopy coverage, lower speed limits, and fewer commercial driveway crossings.  In addition, an exploratory analysis of a small number of bicycle tours found that bicycling was associated with more extensive bicycle facility networks and more bicycle parking. However, people were more likely to drive when they perceived a high risk of crime.

The study also estimates the magnitude of mode shift that could occur if certain changes – increasing population and employment density, increasing the street tree canopy, and eliminating parking spaces – were made.

The transportation consulting firm Fehr & Peers has prepared a report for America Walks on signalized intersection enhancements that benefit pedestrians.  The report is intended to help educate decision makers, planners, engineers, and citizens on signalized intersection treatments that can improve pedestrian safety and convenience.

While clearly indicating that not all of the treatments summarized in this resource are appropriate for every signalized intersection.  This report categorizes signalized intersection enhancements into three types:

• Geometric treatments
• Signal hardware
• Operational measures

The Association of Bicycle and Pedestrian Professionals (APBP) will host a webinar, “Emerging Technologies for Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning,” today, February 15, 2012, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. CT.

Together, land use patterns and transportation policies determine whether walking and bicycling are practical and enjoyable.  This webinar will help participants understand how land use policy and regulations are the basis for pedestrian and bicycle friendly communities, and what to look for in plan review. Through an overview and examples of policy and regulations, and the experience of one small Wisconsin city (Fitchburg, pop. 20,000), participants will find out how innovative zoning codes and policies can help promote active transportation.

The cost is $50 per site for APBP members and $75 per site for non-APBP members.  Register online.  For more information, contact Debra Goeks (262-228-7025 or deb@apbp.org).