Engineering & Planning

This research report is designed to stimulate new understanding and thinking that will lead to better streets for all Americans.

This report presents a framework for conducting and documenting environmental management activities by corridor.

The following optional administrative regulation should be revised to reflect district practice. The strategies listed below are organized around the "five E's" (education, encouragement, enforcement, engineering, and evaluation) recommended for inclusion in all local programs by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration and the National Center for Safe Routes to School's online resource guide, the Safe Routes to School Guide.

This booklet emphasizes the California Department of Transportation's (Caltrans) commitment to make state highways that also happen to be local main streets more livable. It is a manifestation of a process that is sweeping rapidly across America — and across California: Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS).

The Complete Streets Implementation Action Plan was created from an original and much larger list of suggested action items provided by a large cross section of department staff. The Implementation Action Plan projects are organized into seven categories: 1. Highest Focus Areas; 2. Guidance, Manuals, and Handbooks; 3. Policy and Plans; 4. Funding and Project Selection; 5. Raise Awareness; 6. Training; and 7. Research.

The California Department of Transportation (Department) provides for the needs of travelers of all ages and abilities in all planning, programming, design, construction, operations, and maintenance activities and products on the State highway system. The Department views all transportation improvements as opportunities to improve safety, access, and mobility for all travelers in California and recognizes bicycle, pedestrian, and transit modes as integral elements of the transportation system.

"Smart Mobility 2010: A Call to Action for the New Decade" responds to today's transportation challenges with new concepts and tools, presented with a program for putting them into action.

Review of AB1581 — CVC 21450.5

• AB1581 Subcommittee
• Subcommittee Members
• Subcommittee Meetings
• Subcommittee's Recommendation to CTCDC
• CAMUTCD Language for Bicycle/Motorcycle Detection

As part of the City of Charlotte's Smart Growth strategy, staff and consultants are developing comprehensive new urban street design guidelines to be applied to all new and modified streets. The design guidelines provide for all travel modes, while explicitly considering land use context, street function, and allocation among competing uses for often-limited right-of-way. The design guidelines offer direction on planning and designing for five street types and their intersections. As important as the "ideal" cross-sections developed, however, is the information provided to guide the tradeoff decisions inherent in street design, particularly in retrofit or modification situations. To that end, the guidelines include a step-by-step approach to their application.

These Urban Street Design Guidelines are intended to ensure that the best aspects of Charlotte's transportation network are re-cretaed as the city and its street network continue to evolve.

The corridor analysis advocated by the Neighborhood Horizons Plan looked at redesign opportunities to create a
pedestrian and bicycle friendly community-oriented
commercial corridor in a safe, quiet neighborhood.

The City of Sacramento provides a summary and presentation of their street design practices, and they evaluate the effectivess.

This document has been prepared to explain District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) approach to Context Sensitive Design. This purpose of this document is to provide guidelines for achieving excellence in planning and design of transportation projects.

Flyer for a form-based code charette in Columbia Pike, Colorado

Pedestrians have a right to cross roads safely, and, therefore, planners and engineers have a professional responsibility to plan, design, and install safe crossing facilities." —Zegeer, et al., 2001 FHWA Crosswalk Study

Changing Policies To Support Complete Streets, resulting consequences, levels of service (LOS) analysis generates impacts to other modes and the environment, Relationship of Freeway LOS, Speed, and CO2 Emissions Factors, case study in Davis, CA.

Accommodating Bicycle and Pedestrian Travel: A Recommended Approach is a policy statement adopted by the United States Department of Transportation. USDOT hopes that public agencies, professional associations, advocacy groups, and others adopt this approach as a way of committing themselves to integrating bicycling and walking into the transportation mainstream.

A white paper that presents a thorough discussion on Complete Streets.

Context Zones—Every thoroughfare has an immediate physical context created by buildings and activities on adjacent properties and is also part of a broader context created by the surrounding neighborhood or district. While the elements of context can combine in almost infinite varieties, this report uses four context zones to define and categorize urban areas: suburban (C-3), general urban (C-4), urban center (C-5) and urban core (C-6).

Definition of Boulevard—In highly urban areas, boulevards can be "grand boulevards"— streets that help form a city's identity, a formal street designed to beautify and be a primary public space, a promenade. Boulevards can also serve as the urban core's spine, a major commercial corridor served by rail or bus transit having a primary mobility rolecollectors). The report was a joint effort between the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Congress for the New Urbanism, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Definition of Avenue—In all contexts, but particularly in urban centers and cores, avenues make up the majority of thoroughfares comprising the network. Avenues are moderate-speed (30 to 35 mph) urban arterial or collector thoroughfares, generally shorter in length than boulevards. They are primary pedestrian and bicycle routes and may serve local transit. Avenues do not exceed four lanes. Generally, avenues are undivided but some feature a raised landscaped median.the Congress for the New Urbanism, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Creating Quality Main Streets—Main streets may be located in any context zone, but are most commonly found in suburban (C-3), general urban (C-4) and urban center (C-5) contexts. They are usually short segments of arterial or collector streets, often only a few blocks in length. They are within a grid or interconnected system of local streets serving the commercial center of town.

The publication provides a resource for practitioners working in the challenging practice of urban thoroughfare design. The principles are based on the evolving practice of context sensitive solutions (CSS), which integrates CSS principles into existing processes to facilitate informed decision-making that considers the needs, interests and constraints within a project. The publication describes:

• The importance of integrating the principles of CSS in urban roadway improvement projects,
• How CSS principles can be used in the transportation planning and project development processes, and
• Specific guidance on thoroughfare cross-section and intersection design.

Information contained in the report uses urban context to describe adjacent surroundings, then uses context to help select compatible thoroughfare types and design criteria. Context zones are used to categorize urban development density and intensity.

There are several design controls in the application of CSS principles that may be used differently than in the conventional design process. These controls include speed, location, design vehicle and functional classification.

The thoroughfare designer is challenged by the need to balance automobile mobility with the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, public space and urban design elements. While this report emphasizes CSS primarily in walkable, mixed-use residential and commercial urban areas, there are many urban areas with corridors or large districts that, by their nature, are low intensity and low density and do not provide the mix of uses, development patterns, or roadway networks conducive to walking.

AB 1581 (Fuller) was signed by the Governor on October 8, 2007, and became law on January 1, 2008.

Benefits of road diets for bicyclists and pedestrians?

• Provide space to add bicycle lanes
• Reduce crossing distance
• Eliminate or reduce "multiple threat" crash types
• Install crossing island to cross in 2 simple steps
• Reduce top end travel speeds
• Buffer sidewalk from travel lanes (parking or bike lane)
• Reclaim street space for "higher and better use" than moving peak hour traffic

This is a manual that describes how well-conceived traffic calming techniques and traditional neighborhood street design can accomodate the needs of emergency responders while creating safe and livable neighborhoods.

This chapter provides an overview of landscape planning and design, an integral part of transportation project development.

This chapter describes the design considerations for shared use paths and greenways.

This chapter describes a variety of measures that can be used to lower vehicle speeds, and redirect traffic flows.

This resolution sets forth MTC's regional policy for accomodation of bicycle and pedestrian facilities during transportation project planning, design, funding and construction. Also included is pedestrian accomodation checklist.

Introduction to Safe Routes to School: the Health, Safety and Transportation Nexus, including: Overview, History of Safe Routes to School, The Decline of Walking and Bicycling, Health Risks, Safe Routes to School Programs are Part of the Solution, Elements of Safe Routes to School Programs, Take Action Now, Promising Examples and Community Success Stories

This Guidebook provides an overview of key ITS concepts. This version is aimed at senior managers and public policy makers responsible setting overall transportation policy, allocating resources, and making the major decisions on the direction our transportation system will take.

The purpose of the Guidebook is to provide up to date information on: the need to integrate ITS and transportation planning; Federal and other regulations, processes, and reporting requirements, to do so, and recommendations on how to move from today's practice to an integrated approach. This version is targeted towards the "practitioners" that are responsible for supporting the decision process and "working out the details" to make sure that both decisions are made and the transportation system continues to move forward on a day-to-day basis.

The paper examines the role of the street network in road safety outcomes. Data on more than 130,000 crashes occurring over nine years in 24 medium-sized California cities was input into a geographic information system (GIS) and evaluated against principal measures of street network density and connectivity at the Census Block Group level. Few studies have taken this more comprehensive approach of looking at the complete street network when it comes to safety, partly because until now this kind of holistic assessment would have been very difficult without recent advances in research tools such as GIS.

Through interviews with architects, planners, developers, and property managers of case study multifamily developments from Oregon, Arizona, Florida, and Massachusetts, this report focuses on the ways regulation, typical development practice, and design culture have propagated the typical disconnected and enclaved forms of suburban multifamily development. The report then proposes ways in which current planning, development, and design practices might shift in order to take advantage of this growing housing trend and create more livable, less congested, and multi-modal suburban communities.

This PBIC Case Study Compendium contains a collection of brief, original case studies developed by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP). The case studies, or success stories, cover pedestrian and bicycle projects and programs from across the US and abroad, including engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, planning, health promotion, and comprehensive safety initiatives.

The purpose of this guide on "How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan" is to present an overview and framework for state and local agencies to develop and implement a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan tailored to their specific problems and needs. Pedestrian Safety Action Plan is a plan developed by community stakeholders that is intended to improve pedestrian safety in the community. An objective of the guide is to help state and local officials know where to begin to address pedestrian safety issues. it is also intended to assist agencies in further enhancing their existing pedestrian safety programs and activites, including identifying safety problems and selecting optimal solutions.

Integration of Green Infrastructure & Networks with Complete Streets in San Francisco

Complete streets are not limited to a few designated corridors. Many communities have launched main street initiatives, adopted bicycle plans, or undertaken special planning processes for nonmotorized travel in specific places. In contrast, complete streets policies strive for diversity on just about every thoroughfare. And the process of creating complete streets is leading planners and engineers across the country to approach street design in fundamentally new ways.

This Citizen’s Guide is intended to show people who are passionate about creating better streets and walkable communities how they can influence highway professionals to address transportation in ways that place the most value on people and on places.

For jurisdictions looking to update or revise their development codes into a more graphic-oriented document, SACOG has made publicly available its Form-Based Codes Handbook for download. Form-based codes are becoming a more commonly used way of communicating the type of development that a jurisdiction wants and what is allowed.

Every two years, SACOG conducts a programming round to allocate funds to projects based on apportionments of regional Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ), Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP), and State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) funds. These funds are programmed through the Air Quality, Bicycle & Pedestrian, Community Design, Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and Regional/Local funding programs.

Graphic illustrating How Local Projects are Planned and Funded, including community input and various funding sources

Funding rural transportation projects is an even greater challenge because many funding programs are based on population. Rural areas comprise only a small percentage of the SACOG region's population but must maintain a disproportionate number of the region's road miles. Rural areas in the SACOG region account for only 10 percent of the population, but they contain 48 percent of the region's road miles (8,258 total road miles). Urban areas, on the other hand, account for 75 percent of the population and contain only 41 percent of the road miles (7,054 total miles).

Presentation provides an overview of complete streets technical assistance and tools offered by SACOG

The Concept Plan process has provided an opportunity for Carmichael residents, property owners and County departments to participate in creating a design concept for Fair Oaks Boulevard. The Concept Plan illustrates Draft General Plan and Carmichael Community Plan draft policies, addresses the creation of a special planning area (SPA), and compares roadway design options. Specifically, the concept plan illustrates ways in which the community's desires for Fair Oaks Boulevard can be meshed with the roadway project proposed by the County of Sacramento.

This report was developed to analyze the market demand for commercial services and assess the potential to develop and market higher density infill housing along the North Watt Corridor. This market study is incorporated into the existing conditions report, as the first phase of the revitalization plan. The market study will provide a framework for presenting realistic land use alternatives along the Corridor.

This document presents best practices for bicycle master plans for consideration and potential adoption by the Collaborative. These best practices were gleaned from bicycle plans recognized as being exemplary and from cities and/or counties that were recognized as being highly bikeable. First, the required elements of a bicycle master plan in the State of California are presented. Next, best practice bicycle master plan content is presented in the form of a typical bicycle plan outline. A special section addressing the current state-of-the-practice with regard to bicycle level of service measures is presented.

This section presents best practices pedestrian master plans for consideration and possible adoption by the Collaborative. Unlike, the bicycle master plan, there are no required pedestrian master plan elements in the State of California. The contents of a pedestrian master plan presented here represent best practice content gleaned from pedestrian plans of cities like Oakland and Portland that are recognized as being exemplary. The first section presents best practice content in a sample plan outline format, elaborating on key elements of the plan.

The Collaborative's Transportation Team has been particularly focused on practices that will assist the Sacramento countywide area achieve the vision of at least at 10% shift in travel mode from automobiles to walking, cycling, and transit. Transit use is forecasted to increase from 1.3% of trips to 4% or 5% or more, in the Sacramento countywide area.

As people grow older, they often become less willing or able to drive, making it necessary to depend on alternative methods of trans- portation. Unfortunately, the United States is currently ill prepared to provide adequate transportation choices for our rapidly aging population. Alternatives to driving are sparse, particularly in some regions and in rural and small town communities. As the number of older people increases, so too will their mobility needs. How the nation addresses this issue will have significant social and economic ramifications. This report presents new findings based on the National Household Transportation Survey of 2001 and places them in the context of other research on mobility in the aging population.

This research helps confirm what had been intuitively obvious: in the four metropolitan areas studied, transit-oriented development (TOD) housing produced considerably less traffic than what is generated by conventional development.

For four decades, activists for greener, safer NYC streets have scrounged at the margins of this automobilized streetscape. A few feet of traffic lanes converted to bike lanes, the occasional sidewalk extended to relieve a dangerous intersection — all important changes, but all within the context of streets that serve cars, first and foremost. But what would our streets look like if they were redesigned, building-to-building, to first accommodate walkers, bicyclists, the disabled and surface transit? The days of living at the margins are over: the Complete Streets revolution has begun.

Discussion centering around the potential implementation of "skinny streets" policies by the Delaware Department of Transportation.

This report investigates claims that highway capacity expansion is a cost effective and desirable solution to urban traffic congestion problems.

1. Ditch concurrency
2. Code form
3. Get network
4. Complete streets
5. High Speed Rail: Again? Local?

A telephone survey provided to evaluate the design and funding of facilities for bicycle and pedestrian users as part of the state highway network.