The Project for Public Spaces has produced an on-line “Rightsizing Streets Guide.”  The website features ten case studies from communities that have implemented road diets as a means to improve safety, gain public space, increase pedestrian and bicycle mobility and access, and/or enhance communities.  The site describes the rightsizing concept and best practices.

A new study by Florida International University’s Lehman Center for Transportation Research and the Florida Department of Transportation evaluates the safety impact of converting two-way left-turn medians to raised medians.  Eighteen locations totaling 17.51 miles were selected for before-and-after analysis.

Study results indicate a 30.3 percent reduction in the total crash rate after conversion to a raised median and a 28.9 percent reduction in pedestrian crash rate.

A final rule was published, which makes revisions to the joint Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Federal Highway Administration regulations that implement the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).  The revisions are aimed at streamlining the FTA environmental process for transit projects by establishing new categorical exclusions (CEs) intended to improve the efficiency of the environmental review process by making available the least intensive form of review for actions that typically do not have the potential for significant environmental effects.

The rule makes four major changes: (1) it creates ten new CEs to be located in a newly proposed section of the regulation at 23 CFR 771.118 (including bicycle and pedestrian facilities within an existing transportation right-of-way); (2) it expands public involvement methods to include electronic means; (3) it adds language on early scoping into the regulations; and (4) it modifies the list of project types that normally result in the preparation of an EIS.

For an overview of the rule, see the FTA presentation offering guidance on implementation of new CEs.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are collecting information and input from the public on priorities around increasing walkability.  The Office of the Surgeon General will use this information as a call-to-action to increase physical activity through walking among Americans. For more information, see the notice in the Federal Register.

The deadline for submitting information is May 1, 2013. More information is available in the Federal Register notice and the Every Body Walk Collaborative campaign. Organizations may submit comments through either site.

Last month, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Categorical Exclusions (CE) for Projects within the Right-of-Way and for Projects of Limited Federal Assistance.  CE pertains to the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process.  This proposed rule is intended to facilitate implementation of provisions of MAP-21. As proposed, the rule may help improve project delivery for small projects – such as pedestrian and bicycle projects – which use Federal-aid highway program funds.  The links to the NPRM are as follows:

• PDF: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-02-28/pdf/2013-04678.pdf
• TEXT: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-02-28/html/2013-04678.htm

The proposed rule would allow CE for (1) any project within an existing operational right-of-way and (2) any project that receives less than $5 million of Federal funds or with a total estimated cost of not more than $30 million and Federal funds comprising less than 15 percent of the total estimated project cost.

The deadline and instructions for submitting comments on the proposed changes to FHWA’s and FTA’s regulations concerning actions to be categorically excluded under NEPA is April 29, 2013.

For questions on this NPRM, please contact Kreig Larson at kreig.larson@dot.gov.

The Access Board has issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) to include specific provisions for shared use paths in the proposed accessibility guidelines for pedestrian facilities in the public right-of-way (PROWAG). The proposed accessibility guidelines would apply to the design, construction, and alteration of pedestrian facilities in the public right-of-way, including shared use paths, covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Architectural Barriers Act.

The supplemental rule is responsive to feedback the Board received from the public on its proposed rights-of-way guidelines as well as on separate guidelines it is developing for trails and outdoor developed areas.  Comments from the public on these rules urged the Board to specifically address access to shared use paths since they are distinct from sidewalks and trails.  Shared use paths, unlike most sidewalks, are physically separated from streets by an open space or barrier.  They also differ from trails because they are designed not just for recreation purposes but for transportation as well.  In addition, the Board invited comment on this subject in an earlier notice. 

The proposed supplemental provisions on shared use paths are further described in a published notice which includes instructions for submitting comments.  The deadline for comments is May 14, 2013.

The European Transport Safety Council released a report that reviews bicycle safety policies in European Union cities.  The report details cycling infrastructure and best practices for facilitating safe cycling.  While design practice, policy development, and regulatory contexts differ between Europe and the U.S., concepts for safe cycling described in the report may be adaptable to local conditions and needs.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released a report  on a new method to estimate pedestrian and bicyclist exposure in large urban areas.  By calculating the average, estimated annual number of linear miles of roadway (or other motor vehicle shared facility) traveled by pedestrians and bicyclists in a given city, researchers can calculate a crash risk estimate defined as x number of crashes per 100 million miles of shared roadway travelled by pedestrians or bicyclists.

The report describes the application of this methodology to various shared facility types characteristic of the urban environment in Washington, D.C. These facilities included three types of intersections (signalized, four-way stop-controlled, and partially stop-controlled), midblock road segments, driveways, alleys, parking lots, parking garages, school areas, and areas with playing, dashing, or working in the roadway.

A new report by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute discusses reasons to implement complete streets and how the complete streets approach to roadway design relates to other planning innovations.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), has published a white paper that develops a framework for metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to use to integrate health into the metropolitan area transportation planning. The framework addresses both how MPOs can approach health as a general, broad-based goal in comprehensive and interdisciplinary planning and also how MPOs can consider health during all stages of the metropolitan transportation planning process.

The report explores how health can effectively be incorporated in metropolitan transportation planning through case studies of the following four regional agencies:

• Nashville Area MPO
• Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC)
• Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG)
• San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)

As required by the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that hybrid and electric vehicles meet minimum sound standards in order to help make pedestrians more aware of the approaching vehicles.  The public will have 60 days to submit comments on the proposed rule. 

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, in collaboration with Toole Design Group and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), have completed a study of current bike sharing programs in the United States. The study, Bike Sharing in The United States: State of the Practice and Guide to Implementation, explores the evolution of bike sharing in the U.S.  The report identifies success factors, surveys different funding models, examines demographic and geographic trends affecting implementation of programs, gives a step-by-step approach for developing a start-up program, and discusses ways to increase demand in and to expand existing programs.

A new report from the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California - Berkeley utilizes a case study approach of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) rail stations to examine factors that may have contributed both to increases in the number of bicycle trips to access rail stations and also to the enlargement of bike access‐sheds over time.  The authors document on‐site factors, such as an increase in the number of protected and convenient bicycle parking racks, as well as off‐site factors, such as increases in nearby bikeway facilities, to help explain the growing use of bicycles for accessing rail stations.  The adage “build it and they will come,” the study argues, holds for bicycle improvements as much as other forms of urban transportation infrastructure.  Pro‐active partnerships between various entities, including transit agencies, local government, transportation agencies, and bicycle advocacy organizations, are critical to ensuring such improvements are made.

While roundabouts have been shown, in certain situations, to reduce fatal and severe injury crashes when compared to traditional signalized intersections, their impact on pedestrian safety is not fully understood.  This report from Minnesota Department of Transportation and the University of Minnesota investigates pedestrian travel and safety using observations of the interactions between pedestrians and bicyclists and motor vehicles at two modern urban roundabouts in Minnesota.   The report also calculated pedestrian delay at the roundabouts as pedestrians waited either for gaps in traffic or for motor vehicle drivers to yield.

The Ohio Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Office of Research and Development, in partnership with Ohio Safe Routes to School and the Federal Highway Administration, has published “Developing a Methodology for School Travel Plan Development for Large School Districts.”  The report outlines a process to allow large school districts (defined by ODOT as those with more than 15 kindergarten through 8th grade schools) to develop comprehensive, district-wide School Travel Plans (STP).

In order to develop this process, a pilot district (Cincinnati Public Schools) was chosen in order to test and refine methodologies. Methodologies were developed around three key areas identified by ODOT: mapping, infrastructure project identification and prioritization, and non-infrastructure project identification and prioritization.

The report includes “Lessons Learned” and “Recommendations” that may be generalized to assist other large school districts to develop STPs that incorporate both infrastructure and non-infrastructure items.

The New York City Department of Transportation has released a report that proposes new metrics for measuring the overall success of streets, discusses key approaches to street design projects and how these approaches can meet safety goals, serve all users, create great public spaces, and maintain traffic flow.

An article in the journal “Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice” describes a research project undertaken by the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) to better understand bicyclists’ preferences for routes and facility types in Portland.  GPS units were used to record 1,449 non-exercise, utilitarian trips of 164 cyclists over several days. These trips were then coded to the City of Portland’s detailed bicycle network.  Trip purpose and other trip-level variables were recorded by the cyclists.

Analysis of the results suggests that cyclists’ route choices are sensitive to distance, turn frequency, slope, the presence or absence of intersection control, and traffic volumes. Cyclists also appear to value off-street bike paths, enhanced neighborhood bikeways with traffic calming features (aka “bicycle boulevards”), and bicycle-friendly bridge facilities.  Standard bike lanes offset the negative effects of adjacent traffic, but were not more or less attractive than a basic, low-volume street.

Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto have published a study in the journal Diabetes Care, examining the connection between neighborhood walkability and diabetes.

The study looked at data from more than one million residents to assess the impact of neighborhood walkability on diabetes incidence for long-term residents relative to recent immigrants, and found that neighborhood walkability was “a strong predictor of diabetes incidence independent of age and area income, particularly among recent immigrants.”

A new report by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP, Synthesis Report 436), “Local Policies and Practices That Support Safe Pedestrian Environments,” documents various tools and strategies used by municipalities to improve the safety, convenience, and accessibility of the pedestrian experience.

The research approach involved a review of literature and telephone as well as in-person interviews with key staff in local agencies that have implemented policies and practices to support pedestrian-friendly environments. The report includes an overview of recent and current practices undertaken throughout the country in various settings, along with four detailed case studies (New York City, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Olympia, Washington).

The practices are categorized by:

1. Public right-of-way engineering and design guidelines.
2. Architectural and urban design guidelines.
3. Planning and land development regulations.
4. Financing mechanisms.
5. Operations, maintenance, and enforcement measures.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), has released its first planning tool, the Walkability Workbook, through its Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program.   This free set of documents and slide presentations, developed by the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, guides communities through the process of conducting a walkability audit to assess the pedestrian environment and form a vision for short- and long-term improvements to sidewalks and streets.  Additional tools, including one to help communities plan bikeshare programs, will be launched in 2013.