A new report has been issued at the University of Washington titled “So Many Choices, So Many Ways to Choose: How Five State Departments of Transportation Select Safe Routes to School for Funding.” The report compares the methods by which five statedepartments of transportation (DOTs) select the most promisingSafe Routes to Schools (SRTS) proposals for funding.  Their selection processes and criteria used are reviewed to highlight examples of best practices that consider:

• The four common barriers to walking and biking to school (distance, income, parent values and parent concerns).
• The “Five E’s” commonly used to classify SRTS program elements (engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation).
• The five conceptualized stages of an SRTS program (existing conditions, planning, proposal, implementation, and assessment of outcomes).

The study also offers insights into the five state SRTS programs.

The Safe Routes to School National Partnership is hosting a free webinar on ways in which schools can fund, organize, and maintain fleets of bicycles for use in classes focused on traffic and bicycling safety.  The webinar will include presentations from a state bicycling advocacy group, a school official, and a bicycle manufacturer’s grant program manager, each of whom have each built individual SRTS programs through strategically funding, thoughtfully organizing, and systematically maintaining fleets of bicycles for use in the classroom.

The webinar will take place on Wednesday, September 14 from noon to 1:00 p.m. CT.  Registrationis required.

 Concept development has begun for the conversion of an unused, elevated railway line into the Bloomingdale Trail, a 2.6 mile linear park and trail for community recreation and commuters.

A number of public meetings are scheduled to solicit input from the community and additional information for the design process.  The first of these public meeting will be held September 8, 2011, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.  The meeting will take place in the lobby of the Congress Theater, 2135 North Milwaukee Avenue.

To RSVP, contact Isaac Jones at isaac.jones@o-hcommunitypartners.com.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has established a formal policy for determining whether a pedestrian or bicycle improvement qualifies for FTA funding by defining a radius around a public transportation stop or station.

The policy states that, “All pedestrian improvements located within one-half mile and all bicycle improvements located within three miles of a public transportation stop or station shall have a de facto physical and functional relationship to public transportation.  Pedestrian and bicycle improvements beyond these distances may be eligible for FTA funding by demonstrating that the improvement is within the distance that people will travel by foot or by bicycle to use a particular stop or station.”

An updated and enhanced “Official Rulings” page on the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) website is now available.  The webpage -- which is a work in progress -- is a searchable database where you can obtain information about requests to FHWA for changes, experiments, and interpretations related to the MUTCD.  Users can search the database through a variety of fields, including keywords, with predefined selections that include “Pedestrians,” “Pedestrian Signals,” and “Bikes”.

The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) was created under the 2006 transportation authorization law, SAFETEA-LU, as one of the core Federal-Aid funding sources. HSIP funds safety projects that are aimed at reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Bike and pedestrian safety projects are also eligible for HSIP funding.  All public roads, including state, county and local roads, are eligible for HSIP funding. Examples of eligible projects include bike lanes, roadway shoulders, crosswalks, other intersection improvements, and signage.  This “Advocacy Advance” report, published by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB), examines some of the states that have successfully dedicated federal safety funds to reduce bicycle and pedestrian fatalities and crashes and offers case studies and policy recommendations.

Living Streets, a national organization working to promote walkability and to create safe, attractive, and enjoyable streets across the United Kingdom, published the report, “Making the Case for Investment in the Walking Environment.”  The report explores the potential benefits of investing in the walking environment.

Researched by a multi-disciplinary team of experts from the University of the West of England and Cavill Associates, the report brings together and evaluates the multiple health, economic, social, and environmental benefits of investment in walking friendly public spaces.  The report draws on case studies of plans which have resulted in safer and more attractive public places in neighborhoods and city centers in the UK and elsewhere.

The Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2198 is dedicated to studies on non-motorized transportation.  The volume contains 17 papers on incorporating bicycle and pedestrian topics in university transportation courses, high-visibility school crosswalks, safety effectiveness of leading pedestrian intervals, driver and pedestrian behavior at uncontrolled crosswalks, pedestrian traffic flow in confined passageways, roadway intersection characteristics and pedestrian crash risk, and pedestrian-vehicle conflicts.

The issue also examines pedestrian safety prediction for urban signalized intersections, a real-time system for tracking and classification of pedestrians and bicycles, use of pedestrian crash data to identify unsafe transit service segments, the effect of street network design on walking and biking, multimodal driveway design, shared-use paths adjacent to the roadway, signal timing optimization models for a midblock pedestrian crossing, pedestrian safety retraining for elementary and middle school students, and modeling the evacuation of crowded pedestrian facilities.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has published two research briefs on non-motorized transportation issues.  One is titled “Sidewalks Promote Walking” and the other is “How Bike Paths and Lanes Make a Difference.”  Although the former concludes that the presence of sidewalks has a slight positive effect on the tendency of adults to take walks, it points out that ifthe people in communities without sidewalks (about one-third of the nation’s population) were to walk at the same rate as they do in communities with sidewalks, an additional 2.8 million adults would join the ranks of the walking.

The latter brief finds that bicyclists riding in areas without bike paths or lanes are nearly twice as likely to feel endangered (mostly by motorists) as bicyclists with paths or lanes, and are more than four times as likely to be dissatisfied with how their community is designed for making biking safe.

A recent Daily Herald article covers the Village of Palatine’s approval of  its draft Bicycle Transportation Plan at the July 18, 2011 Village Council meeting.  The comprehensive bike plan was developed by consulting firm, SPACECO, Inc. in collaboration with staff from the League of Illinois Bicyclists.

According to the article, local cyclists and cycling advocates first approached village officials in early 2009 about the development of a bicycle plan.  The development of the plan included outreach to obtain extensive public input on facility locations and types.  The Palatine Patch quotes Palatine Director of Community Services, Harry Spila, stating in support of the plan, “We want to make [non-motorized] connections for people to shopping, stores and destinations such as the train station, but also to provide connectivity with our adjacent neighbors such as Arlington Heights and Rolling Meadows.”

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) recently announced the inaugural round of the Walk Friendly Communities (WFC) program.  PBIC has recognized the following 11 communities for their commitment to improving walkability and pedestrian safety:

• Platinum Level: Seattle, WA
• Gold Level: Ann Arbor, MI; Arlington, VA; Hoboken, NJ; Santa Barbara, CA
• Silver Level: Charlottesville, VA; Decatur, GA
• Bronze Level: Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; Flagstaff, AZ; Wilsonville, OR

The program recognizes applicant communities that “have demonstrated a commitment to improving and sustaining walkability and pedestrian safety through comprehensive programs, plans and policies.”

The New Zealand Transport Agency released a report exploring case studies at eight New Zealand sites where the implementation of new pedestrian facilities or the improvement of existing facilities led to increased pedestrian usage and improved perception of the sites.

The report examines pedestrian rates both before and after facility implementation and analyzes accompanying factors such as safety, delay, and directness. It also highlights an expected pedestrian-usage model, based on before and after data analysis, for planners and funding agents to use when planning new or improved facilities, as well as for use in project evaluation.

The report demonstrates study methods that can be replicated locally in the Chicago region.

As part of its Promising Practices and Solutions in Accessible Transportation series, Easter Seals Project ACTION, in partnership with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), is presenting a webinar on a recently released report by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) on the issues and design solutions for navigation of roundabouts and channelized right-turn lanes by pedestrians who have visual impairments.  (See our earlier blog post on this report.)

The webinar will feature panelists’ evaluation of accessibility at these complex intersection types and their understandings of the impacts of site geometry and operational characteristics on accessibility. The webinar will present the findings on infrastructure-based treatments aimed at improving the accessibility of roundabouts and channelized right-turn lanes. The panelists will include a certified orientation and mobility specialist, as well as a registered professional engineer.

The webinar will take place Wednesday, August 17, 2011, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. CT.  The webinar is free but space is limited and advance registration is required.

On Wednesday, August 17, 2011, Chicago Alderman Margaret Laurino (39^th Ward), Chair of City Council’s Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee, and the City’s Department of Transportation, will hold an ‘Urban Pedestrian Issues’ subject matter hearing.  The hearing is from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in City Council Chambers in City Hall.  Citizens as well as elected officials are encouraged to attend.

Invited keynote speaker is Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia – home to highly successful Bus Rapid Transit and pedestrian-friendly innovations.  Aldermen Rey Colon and Ariel Reboyras will talk about their recent fact-finding trip to Spain, and the examples and lessons learned about how to make Chicago a more bike- and pedestrian-friendly city.  The Active Transportation Alliance and Metropolitan Planning Council will address strategic policy changes and the economic and social benefits of being a pedestrian-friendly city.

This hearing is being held in conjunction with the series of public meetings held across Chicago this summer for the City’s first Pedestrian Plan.  Learn more by visiting Chicago Pedestrian Plan.

The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) has published “A Citizen’s Guide to Better Streets: How to Engage your Transportation Agency.”  The guide was developed by Gary Toth, Senior Director of Transportation Initiatives at PPS and former engineer (of 34 years) with the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), in partnership with the AARP.  The guide is intended as a primer to help individuals and community organizations collaborate effectively with their local or state department of transportation. With the core principles of “placemaking” in mind -- namely that streets should not only move vehicles, but should accommodate all travel modes, as well as serve as gathering places for civic life -- the book instructs citizens on how to better prepare for working with transportation agencies.

The Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University released a report exploring the state of the knowledge related to integrating transit and bicycling, and proposes an analysis framework for communities and transit agencies to consider in efforts to maximize the integration of bicycling and transit.

The report also attempts to gauge preferences for bicycle and transit integration strategies among consumers, and suggests a preliminary application to evaluate four bicycle and transit integration strategies.

The National Transportation Enhancements Clearinghouse (NTEC) recently published the 2010 Transportation Enhancements Spending Report. The report analyzes states' use of federal transportation enhancement funding from 1992 through 2010. The TE Spending report is available on-line.

The League of American Bicyclists published a national bike map, courtesy of the map’s creator, Kory Northrop, a master’s student in the Environmental Studies program at the University of Oregon.  The map shows the U.S. Census American Community Survey data on bicycle commuter mode share and the number of female and male bike commuters in each state.  The map also highlights the 10 cities with the largest bicycle mode share (among the largest 70 U.S. cities), the per capita and total federal spending on bicycle and pedestrian projects since 1990, and the number of bicycle-related traffic fatalities.  For comparison, the City of Chicago had a bike commuting rate of approximately 1.15 percent, and the region 0.57 percent.

The U.S. Access Board has released for public comment proposed guidelines for accessible public rights-of-way.  The guidelines provide design criteria for public streets and sidewalks, including pedestrian access routes, street crossings, curb ramps and blended transitions, on-street parking, transit stops/shelters, street furniture, and other elements.  The specifications comprehensively address access that accommodates all types of disabilities, including mobility and vision impairments, while taking into account conditions and constraints that may impact compliance, such as space limitations and terrain, as indicated in an overview of the rule.

The deadline for public comments is November 23, 2011.  The proposed guidelines can be accessed, and comments submitted or viewed, through the Federal government's rulemaking portal.  Instructions for submitting comments are included in the proposal and on the Federal Register webpage.

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the Access Board will conduct a public webinarto review the proposal on August 9, 2011.

On July 26, the U.S. Access Board will publish proposed guidelines for accessible public rights-of-way.  On that day, the guidelines will be posted on the Board’s website and will be available for public comment for four months.  The Board will conduct several events to present the proposed rule and to solicit comment, including a public briefing and press conference, a webinar, and hearings.

• Public Briefing and Press Conference (July 26, 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET)

Members of the public and the media are invited to attend a Board briefing and press conference on the proposal on July 26 from 11:00 – 12:30 at the Board’s meeting space at 1331 F Street, NW, Suite 800, in downtown Washington, D.C.  Board representatives will review requirements of the proposed guidelines, highlight information sought from the public on various topics, and field questions from the press. 

• Webinar (August 9, 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CT)

The Board will conduct a public webinar to review the proposed rule and to discuss subjects where input from the public is sought.  To register for this free webinar, visit www.accessibilityonline.org.

• Public Hearings (September 12 in Dallas, and November 9 in Washington, D.C.)

The Board will hold public hearings on the proposed rule in Dallas, Texas on September 12 (9:30 to 11:30 a.m. CT) and Washington, D.C. on November 9 (9:30 to 11:30 a.m. ET).  Members of the public will have the opportunity to provide comments on the rule at these hearings.  Further details will be included in the published rule.