Keywords: pedestrian planning, accessibility

Keywords: urban planning, streets, street design, pedestrian planning

The risk perception and behavior of elderly pedestrians and cyclists in cities in Denmark have been revealed by means of a questionnaire administered to both elderly people aged 70 and above and a control group aged 40-49, and interviews with some of the elderly respondents. The elderly appreciate pedestrian crossings, signalized intersections and cycle paths significantly more than the control group does. To a larger extent they feel that it is dangerous to cross the road where these facilities are missing. Furthermore, the elderly pedestrians find the presence of a sidewalk very important on their route whereas the control group more often chooses the fastest route. Differences within the group of elderly respondents can be related to differences in health and physical abilities rather that to differences in age. Generally, the elderly road users state a more cautious behavior in specific traffic situations than the control group. Thus, a significantly higher proportion of the elderly than the control group choose to walk up to a pedestrian crossing if they can see one and stop the bicycle before turning left, and a significantly lower proportion of the elderly choose to cross at a red light, ride on the sidewalk and ride in the opposite direction on the cycle path.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, streets

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Some claim that cardependent cities contribute to obesity by discouraging walking and bicycling. In this article, we use household activity data from the San Francisco region to study the links between urban environments and nonmotorized travel.

We used factor analysis to represent the urban design and land-use diversity dimensions of built environments. Combining factor scores with control variables, like steep terrain, that gauge impediments to walking and bicycling, we estimated discrete-choice models. Builtenvironment factors exerted far weaker, although not inconsequential, influences on walking and bicycling than control variables.

Stronger evidence on the importance of urban landscapes in shaping foot and bicycle travel is needed if the urban planning and public health professions are to forge an effective alliance against cardependent sprawl.

A good study looking at the factors influencing cycling and walking. The perspective is Cervero's usual framework, the three Ds: density, diversity and design. All three are found to have significant influences on bicycle usage, with the residential end being slightly more important. Of the urban form variables, the presence of neighbourhood retail is found to be the strongest predictor of walking.

From an evaluation standpoint, I wish these authors would standardize/normalize the coefficients of their models! After limiting to statistically significant variables, normalization would allow me to compare the relative influence of each variable on bicycle usage. It would also be extremely useful to include the mean and standard deviation of all input variables, to allow some rough comparisons to other study areas. If the input data has low variance (e.g., a uniformly low-density suburb), meaningful patterns could be missed.

Finally, the bicycle model seems pretty shoddy-the rho-squared value is only 0.13! Since it only considers factors at origin and destination, I imagine it's missing a massive amount of valuable data, like the topography, safety and quality of the route itself.

Keywords: active transportation, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, urban form, bicycle modelling

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning, urban form, urban design, land use transport link

Apparently fairly important - shows benefits of traditional neighbourhood design.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning, urban form, urban design, land use transport link

detailed annotation

This was my real introduction to transport planning, and now in retrospect I can see that this document represents a very progressive stance on transportation planning. See some of my detailed comments on cycling at the VACC website; I've been the lead person on downtown issues for the VACC for the last several years.

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, goods movement, transit, canada

Keywords: urban planning, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Vehicle restricted areas (VRAs) or `pedestrian areas' in town centres are sometimes important routes for cyclists. However, cycling is prohibited in many VRAs on the grounds of pedestrian comfort and safety. TRL studied the behaviour of 2,220 cyclists at sites in Cambridge, Hull and Salisbury where cycling is permitted for part or all of the day. TRL also interviewed 300 pedestrians and 150 cyclists at these sites to obtain additional details about behaviour and attitudes. The report presents data on cycling speeds, dismounting and pedestrian flows and identifies those factors that significantly influence cyclist behaviour. It also shows which types of cyclists are most likely to ignore cycling bans and to cycle fast. The interviews reveal varying levels of acceptance by pedestrians of cycling in VRAs, and indicate that some injurious incidents occur. Conclusions are presented about how the physical layout of the VRA and other factors can affect pedestrian safety and comfort. The report does not endorse or reject cycling in VRAs, but presents information that may assist with appropriate local regulation and design.

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

The ADONIS project was commissioned by the European Commission to a Consortium comprising 7 partners as part of the Fourth Framework Programme. Original title of the project is: Analysis and Development Of New Insight into Substitution of short car trips by cycling and walking (ADONIS).

The ADONIS project was partly funded by the EU - DG VII Transport RTD Programme, Urban Sector and was co-financed by Danish Transport Council, Danish Ministry of Transport, Municipality of Barcelona, Catalan Institute of Road safety, SAINCO TRAFICO S.A., Swedish Transport & Communications Research Board and Belgian Institute for Traffic Safety.

Interesting ideas: C10 (New types of designs for bus stops) describes some interesting ways of designing bus stops to reduce conflicts with cyclists. In one of the options, the bicycle lane is against the curb, but the bus does not pull into the curb to let passengers off. Instead, it stops in its lane, and passengers walk across the bicycle lane. To help them, zebra crossings are marked across the bicycle lane at the bus doors. I think this design is only needed because buses in Denmark are not allowed to pull up to the curb when there is a bicycle lane. C17a-b (Two-way bicycle traffic in one-way streets in Belgium and the Netherlands) gives some interesting background on the effectiveness of this desirable tactic in those countries, and includes some useful signs used there. C18 (two-way traffic on cycle tracks) makes the interesting point that two-way tracks can be good solutions when there are many T juntions on one side of the street, but few on the other (e.g., next to rail tracks or water).

The crossings section is excellent: all of C19-C32 are worth reading. These ideas are first-rate, and few of them have been adopted in North America, from what I've seen. These are some of the biggest issues that I have with current design on this continent. I liked their use of the term “cycle crossing” where the bike lane/path is marked through an intersection.

The parking section (C33-C38) isn't too revolutionary. There are a few interesting details of free public bicycle programmes, and company bicycle programmes in C40-C42. The rest of the policy section (C39-C44) was unexciting, and likewise for the education section (C45-C52).

The organisation section had some interesting ideas. C53 discusses bicycles on public transport (mainly commuter rail routes) in Copenhagen. C56 (“BikeBusters”) describes a programme where committed car drivers were given a free bike, free bus tickets for a year, and asked to fill in trip diaries and track their weight and cholesterol. Others describe bike-to-school programmes, bicycle courier companies, and priority snow cleaning.

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, pavement colouring, pavement marking, streets

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, urban planning, transport planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Apparently, this talks about the inapplicability of motorized travel models to peds/bikes.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, transport modelling

Keywords: bicycle collisions, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, finance

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, traffic calming, bicycle collisions

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, active transportation

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Some very good points in a comparison of several Toronto shopping centres that I know well. Hard data makes for an interesting comparison exercise. The amazing thing, really, is the allocation of space in each centre: roughly 2.5:1 ratio of space for cars to space for buildings (except North York Centre, at 2:1), compared with 1:2 in downtown Toronto. North York Centre still comes out almost as bad as the others, since it uses its saved space mostly for open park space (38% of total space!)

“If suburban mixed-use centres have been successful in juxtaposing different land uses, their integration of these uses has been far less impressive.”

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, urban design, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: active transportation, urban planning, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, urban form, transport planning, land use transport link

Keywords: active transportation, urban planning, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, urban form, transport planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban planning, urban design, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban planning, canada, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

I haven't fully absorbed the meaning of this author's models yet.

Keywords: urban planning, urban form, land use transport link, transport planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban form, urban planning, pedestrian planning, land use transport link

An excellent article investigating the role of attitudes in walking and biking. Most importantly, they attempted a quasi-longitudinal method. They discussed the feedbacks between the act of walking and attitudes about walking, although their method is not sophisticated enough to examine those feedbacks.

Some of the numbers are scary. For the average suburban respondent, the minimum distance to any establishment was about 550m, versus 250m for an urban respondent. The distance to any household maintenance establishment (e.g., groceries, drugstore, etc.) was 800m versus 400m for urban. No wonder no one walks!

Their cycling model had a surprisingly high R-squared value, 0.258-most disaggregate cycling models that I've seen are much lower. Cervero & Duncan had about 0.13; Krizek had about 0.22. Mind you, this could just be a result of their model structure, which is quite unusual.

Regarding their actual models, I'm mildly concerned by the pro-bike/walk and pro-transit attitude variables in their cycling model. While the signs are plausible, the variables are fairly highly correlated; is it possible that the parameters are therefore misestimated? (Mind you, a correlation of 0.3 isn't that high, at the end of the day.) More importantly, what is the “alternatives factor”? I'm guessing that it refers to the “PA options” factor, but it's not clear. Finally, why is a change in the “socializing behaviour” in the new neighbourhood associated with greater cycling? This isn't explored in the paper, but I could imagine that it means “more other people out cycling”-the classic “safety in numbers” hypothesis from the cycling literature.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, land use transport link

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning, traffic calming

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning, transport planning, traffic calming

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning, transport planning, traffic calming

Keywords: streets, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, canada, street design, urban design, prioritisation

Some interesting notes about site design. It's a refreshingly concrete comparison of urban and suburban neighbourhood design. I don't think I'd realised just how sparse some American street networks are until I saw the maps of Mariner, Seattle... I can't find any Canadian suburb that empty. Not that it makes Canadian suburbs any more walkable-our suburban pattern may be dense, but it's still extremely disconnected.

The scale of suburban blocks was also surprising: 300m-400m per side, on average, compared to 90m-122m for urban blocks. The rule of thumb is that people won't walk more than 400m to a bus stop-one block in the suburbs. Not to mention the perceptual bleakness of walking forever in these empty spaces...

I found the comments here about pedestrian traffic to different sized commercial centres interesting. They found that in suburban neighbourhoods, pedestrians preferred medium-sized centres over other sizes. I wonder what the reasons are-perhaps the auto-favouring design features around large suburban centres, or the barrier caused by their colossal parking lots?

I really liked the discussions on micro design. While many reports talk about illegal jaywalking, they at least note that in many suburban areas, the distance between legal crossings is usually 400-800m-a huge distance for someone on foot. Is it any wonder that people jaywalk? They also noted the problems of fences around apartment complexes, schools, and commercial areas-I can't count the number of times I've walked the most direct path out of a suburban location only to find a fence, and then being forced to retrace my steps, walking an extra 500-1000m for no reason whatsoever.

Finally, I liked the idea of a “latent” pedestrian market in medium-density suburbs, that could be brought out with improved design.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban design, streets

Keywords: pedestrian planning, prioritisation

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, streets

Keywords: transport planning, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Somewhat interesting, mostly due to its rarity: there are very few North American studies of pavement colouring. It's a rural context, and hence not very applicable in the situations I examine, where a bike lane might be coloured adjacent to a parking lane. The most curious aspect of the paper is the author's choice to consider “motor vehicle encroaches neighboring vehicle lane when passing bike” as a major variable-it's an issue, but not a major one in my view.

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, pavement colouring, streets

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning

detailed annotation

Keywords: urban planning, equity, transport planning, general interest, sociology, streets, pedestrian planning, accessibility, urban design

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, bicycle collisions, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, urban planning, bike box, street design, streets

The unsustainable nature of current urban transportation and land use is well recognized. What is less clear is the prescription for how to move towards a more sustainable future, especially given the many interest groups involved, the complexity of urban systems and the fragmented nature of decision-making in most urban regions. It is argued that the process of achieving more sustainable transportation requires suitable establishment of four pillars: effective governance of land use and transportation; fair, efficient, stable funding; strategic infrastructure investments; and attention to neighbourhood design. A review of each pillar identifies key issues. The characteristics of an ideal body for governance of land use and transportation are considered. Trade-offs are identified with: spatial representation; organizational structure; democracy; and market philosophy. Effective financing and pricing of urban transportation may be distorted because responsibility for infrastructure is separated from service provision. Financing mechanisms are categorized depending on vehicle use and location. Investment in infrastructure for alternative fuel vehicles and intermediate semi-rapid transit may be required in many cities. Major investment in public transit infrastructure will likely not suffice if macro land use and micro neighbourhood designs are not supportive of these investments.

A useful read, covering a wide swath of topics, and including many useful pointers to other papers within each topic. I found the discussion of financing transportation particularly useful, mostly because I haven't read much about that topic. Discussion of market vs. non-market approaches, including P3s, was also valuable. I'm glad to see discussion of neighbourhood design in the article, a topic which is familiar and close to my heart.

Keywords: transport planning, urban planning, governance, finance, transit, pedestrian planning

A fairly simple study, but with some important discussion and results. Most importantly, they examined nonlinear reactions to distance for cycling and walking. While this is not a surprising result, and would probably emerge from a traditional multinomial logit mode choice model (with linear disutility for distance), it is still worth exploring. From a policy perspective, the nonlinear relationship that emerges can be vital to designing walkable and bikable neighbourhoods. After controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, they found that only the presence of retail closer than 200m was associated with higher odds of walking; the presence of retail in the 200m-400m range had no significant impact on the odds of walking. This contradicts the received wisdom that people are willing to walk up to 400m (1/4 mile) for such trips. It also suggests that urban intensification should be focused within a very narrow range of retail establishments to be effective, similar to the strategy of Toronto's Avenues plan or Vancouver's EcoDensity initiative.

For cycling, they found that only the presence of a path within 400m of home was associated with higher odds of biking. Again, more distant paths had no significant effect. This is also a lower limit than the received wisdom, although not drastically so. I think Vancouver's long-range bicycle plan aims for bike routes with a spacing of 500m, although they're nowhere close to that yet. It does suggest that there could be significant improvements in mode share when the spacing improves from the current level (roughly 1000m) to 500m, which is a bit surprising; I'd sort of thought that we'd see diminishing returns with the later routes, but this paper suggests that routes that are too far away have no impact on most people.

Finally, Krizek and Johnson mention one important note: the number of vehicles/bicycles in a household is a potentially endogenous variable, making it dangerous for use in a model. An interesting note, and one that's rarely considered in the modelling literature.

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning

Keywords: transportation demand management, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, transit, urban form, parking, urban economics, finance, prioritisation, accessibility

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban planning, pedestrian planning, new urbanism

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: transport planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban design

An interesting look at Munich, Vienna and Zurich. Their approaches to funding are similar to Vancouver's, but they've done some very innovative projects, including narrowing arterials while maintaining capacity, and extensive parking management plans.

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, parking, urban planning, traffic calming

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

So... patronising. From the title (“non-commuters”) onwards, the author treats walking as an exotic eccentricity: “While fascinating, exotic and possibly romantic, little is known about those who “refuse” to use the two main modes of travel.” The author does note that Eas99 found that motorized travel models cannot be easily applied to nonmotorized travel. The analysis is confused by the antiquated sexist division of the Israeli census into “heads of household” and “spouse of head” categories. The author makes little attempt to unify the analysis of these categories, and falls into rambling about walkers being “poorer and less educated” than commuters, instead of doing a breakdown by income group and comparing trends within each group, or making a reasonable effort to guess at causes. Okay, I'm reacting very negatively to the article, and I'm not giving it a fair shake, but the tone and language really irritated me.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, transport modelling

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, bicycle collisions

Keywords: pedestrian planning

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, intermodal

Keywords: bicycle planning, transit, pedestrian planning

detailed annotation

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, pedestrian planning, traffic calming, streets

Two important transportation goals for most American downtowns are to provide sufficient parking spaces to meet the demand of motorists and an attractive pedestrian-friendly environment. Yet, when planned for separately, these two goals frequently contradict each other. This article discusses the characteristics, problems, and strategies associated with downtown pedestrians and parking and advocates an integrated approach wherein the needs of both pedestrians and motorists are balanced. The keys to achieving this balance are (1) finding appropriate locations for off-street parking facilities that do not impede pedestrian flow, and (2) designing parking facilities that are sensitive to pedestrians and facilitate pedestrian connections.

Keywords: parking, pedestrian planning

By estimating multinomial choice models, this paper examines the relationship between travel mode choice and attributes of the local physical environment such as topography, sidewalk availability, residential density, and the presence of walking and cycling paths. Data for student and staff commuters to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill are used to illustrate the relationship between mode choice and the objectively measured environmental attributes, while accounting for typical modal characteristics such as travel time, access time, and out-of-pocket cost. Results suggest that jointly the four attributes of the local physical environment make significant marginal contributions to explaining travel mode choice. In particular, the estimates reveal that local topography and sidewalk availability are significantly associated with the attractiveness of non-motorized modes. Point elasticities are provided and recommendations given regarding the importance of incorporating non-motorized modes into local transportation planning and in the study of how the built environment influences travel behavior.

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, urban design, transport planning, transport modelling, land use transport link

Keywords: finance, pedestrian planning, bicycle planning, active transportation

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, prioritisation

This guidebook provides a means for practitioners to better understand and estimate bicycle and pedestrian travel and to address transportation planning needs. The guidebook describes and compares the various methods that can be used to forecast non-motorized travel demand or that otherwise support the prioritization and analyses of non-motorized projects. These methods are categorized according to four major purposes: (1) demand estimation; (2) relative demand potential; (3) supply quality analysis; and (4) supporting tools and techniques. Discrete choice models, regional travel models, sketch plan methods, facility demand potential, bicycle compatibility measures, and geographic information systems are among the methods and tools described.

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: urban form, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban form

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, urban planning, urban design, street design, streets

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, urban planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, streets

Keywords: pedestrian planning, streets

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: transport planning, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, sociology

Keywords: urban planning, pedestrian planning

Keywords: pedestrian planning, bicycle planning

Keywords: bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, active transportation