Evaluation of Shared Space Alternative in Morgantown, WV
Transportation design is one of the factors that need to be considered when developing new roads in either the cities or towns. Pedestrian and vehicle movement conflicts are always addressed in traffic engineering, and this is solved through bridges, tunnels or signals on the roads. Shared space is one of the mechanisms that has been implemented in Europe and has shown improved efficiency and safety to both pedestrian and vehicle transportation. A research is done that focuses on analyzing how shared space can be implemented in the United States specifically on the West Virginia University Downtown campus in the heart of Morgantown, West Virginia.
In this research, the shared space has enabled pedestrians and vehicles to have equal access to road, and there are reduced speed areas. With this in consideration, drivers are more cautious when driving in this places since there are no traffic police or signals to direct. All lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks are eliminated to create the shared space. Shared space improved pedestrian safety since there are increased pedestrian visibility. There is continuous traffic flow, fewer shock waves were observed, and pedestrians would spread out and this yield to oncoming traffic. With share space mechanism, there is low impact on existing infrastructure, a cost of building bridges and tunnel is in small fraction and construction time is reduced. Despite this mechanism, shared space face challenges. To implement share space mechanism, WV rules of the road need to fit, physical education has to be given to drivers, necessary addition or revision to the laws had to be made. Furthermore, proper design for bus stops, freight pickup, and delivery need to be illustrated correctly, and all this be by MUTCD, ADA, and other requirements. WVU students’ needs education together with the community about shared space and public concerns and needs need to be incorporated in the planning process. Shared space can decrease vehicle congestion and improve community atmosphere.
Location-efficient affordable housing as a pre-requisite for a safe, healthy, and equitable transportation system
Research indicates that environment we live in largely influence our physical activities that we undertake every day. Economic, health and environmental benefits associated with active travel and transit is a consideration that everybody need to make. Under economic, low-income households is seen to spend a much higher percentage of income in transportation. Since there is little income much is needed, and this is accessed by other means such as travel and this increase the transport cost. Spatial mismatch between job centers, affordable housing, and affordable transportation result in more difficult commutes and fewer available jobs. An overview is made between affordable housing and transportation planning. The largest source of new affordable housing in the United States is the Low-income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC).
Many chronic diseases that are identified with physical inactivity or activity are more prevalent in low-income individuals than in wealthy individuals. Moreover, low-income people are at risk of health complications from transportation-related air quality problems, for example, asthma. As a result of this aspect, affordable housing is an essential requirement for an equitable transportation system. Durable measures need to be indicated to ensure no problem that arise from housing and transportation cost. For example while evaluating transportation cost consideration in the calculation should be made on housing cost and would indicate location affordability. In a place where there is increased property values, tax revenue would be more, development would be at a higher densities and amplification of affordable housing shortage would be evidenced.
The back-story: How Livable Streets advocates changed Boston
Local grassroots advocacy organizations play a significant role in designing the cities that later look good in future, but these groups are rarely recognized. Various effective tactics need to be used in the realization of organizational objectives. Before LivableStreets was founded in 2005, Boston City had 3/8 of one mile of bicycle lanes. LivableStreets Alliance has changed the face of Boston since many streets have been designed in the State and this has enhanced ease in transportation. With LIvableStreets Alliance involvement in shifting politic, policy, public opinion and plans, a government of Boston has supported several projects that aim at improving the streets that are used for biking and walking. LivableStreets Organization inspired the community and this raised an alarm for developing the State since people demand proper designs that would accommodate even plans. This organization also built partnerships with various stakeholders in Boston who were assigned the task in constructing different streets in the nation. Using this mechanism, LivableStreets organizations was able to change the state regarding infrastructure.
The government would be convinced through this advocacy and ensured all the projects that were funded met the objectives that were put in place. This advocacy that is LivableStreers provided technical assistance and this contributed largely to quality delivery in the construction areas. With these improved street lanes, bike riders can enjoy the smooth surface that is friendly. Moreover, sports activities such as bicycle riding have increased, and this has attracted many participants due to the quality street lanes suitable for this game. Proper signs indicating bicycle lanes has distinguished roadway use from other people, and this has ensured there are no bicycle injuries from other road users. Vehicles use the designated roads that are different from a cyclist, and this all was enhanced by LivableStreets organization.
The Trade-offs between Population Density and Households’ Transportation-housing Costs
Households in the urban areas trade-off between housing costs and transportation cost and as a result of these appropriate policies need to be implemented to regulate the increase in urban densities to bring balance. The increase in urban population density leads to rising in housing cost. Systems that intend to promote density would increase the housing cost in the medium term mainly urban growth boundaries. Construction of fixed route transit systems would significantly change affordability along the routes. With the 2000 Census Public Use Micro Sample (PUMS) person and household data from twenty-three nations that are most densely populated states, impacts of increased population density affected housing cost measures in household rents, monthly mortgage payments, and housing unit values.
There is a difference between rural and urban housing price and this is contributed much to the population density. Gross rent can be predicted in two ways that is one for single-family renters and one for apartments. Furthermore, two models predict single-family homeowner cost, and this includes one for housing unit value and one for the monthly mortgage payment. Owners of homes in neighborhoods with lower SOV commute times pay higher mortgages, and this is evidenced in the Sunbelt. With increased population, fatal bicycle collisions were experienced, and more accidents occurred on Mondays and Fridays during the peak hours. Roadway segments lacked bike lanes, and the speed limits were 30 mph to 35 mph and due to this collisions increased causing more injuries. Bicyclist faced accidents because of the normal road conditions, dry road surfaces, and two-way traffic. Due to these consequences in the transportation sector, policies that advocate moderate population density is necessary to control the level of risk from a high population in urban areas. A range of 0.041 to 0.5 illustrated that elasticity of housing cost on population density is low.
Transportation Cost Index: A New Comprehensive Performance Measure for Transportation and Land Use
Federal and state policies are important in transportation performance measures especially in the areas of mobility, livability, economy and safety. It becomes harder for performance test to include both transportation and land use despite efforts to catalog and design such measures. Transport Cost Index (TCI) is one of the comprehensive performance measures for land use and transportation and fill significant gaps such as equity and compatibility, in general, accessibility measures. This performance measure can present an overall picture of transportation and land use. Moreover, this step is easy to understand since it monitor trends and compare scenarios. Prioritization, scenario comparison, benchmarking and standard are among the ranging cases that are applicable in this performance measure. Transport Cost Index (TCI) performance standard has been applied in Portland and Corvallis, Oregon and also outcome from Salt Lake City, Utah and Tampa Bay, Florida indicate its effective performance as a comprehensive measure.
Monetary costs and time tracking can be achieved using Transport Cost Index (TCI) as a measure of performance and this suit prioritization and benchmarking to ensure only the correct direction is followed. From respective inputs from travel demand model that is the data readily available for regions, calculation concerning transportation cost from every income group can be evaluated effectively without any problems. The monetary costs would include fuel, ownership costs, and insurance which contribute to the day to day activities. When Transport Cost Index (TCI) is tested regarding public engagement and policy making process, it indicated it was the efficient and suitable method to measure transport and land use.

Examining the right to bicycle: Synergies and tensions between human rights, civil rights, and planning for cycling
Cycling advocacy fights for securing and expanding the universal right to bicycle and safe street space and protection for cyclists. Reasons for bicycle fall within various rights framework and this focus on human rights and civil rights contexts considering traffic safety codes and transportation planning frameworks. Despite other rights being honored in human rights and civil rights, a right to cycling has not been implemented and embraced. There is tension on the aspect of the right to cycle although many people would advocate and support this right. There is no significant support for civil rights on the right to cycle as is expected of the laws. Human rights indicate that there is right to bodily integrity and mobility and due to this they have hesitated in implementing the right to cycle. Transportation plans were done by the human rights and civil rights usually affect the citizens since there are not given the platform where they can air their views on those issues.
Advocacy in the area of cycling has put strategies for the right to bicycle despite tensions and teamwork with other transportation rights movements such as transportation justice movement and universal access who influence the civil rights frames and environmental justice. In social norms cycling is seen as a second class mode and only the minorities are associated with cycling. Adoption of cycling in United State would create bicycle investment, bicycle infrastructure would be developed, and many would be encouraged in cycling pattern. Bicycles are relatively cheap and using them would reduce transport cost. Conflicting factors are that bicycles are considered to lower citizens’ status to minorities and bicycling places the body in harm’s way. With this in consideration, conflict is developed between the bicycle justice and transportation justice hence causing a problem on cycling rights in the United States.
Model-Based Analytics and Processes for Transportation Investment Alternatives Analyses: From Least Cost Planning to Multi-Criterion Evaluation
A structured decision-support process is used by many public and private organizations in making decisions that regard whether and how to invest in transportation assets or programs. A family may use methods that utilize travel demand model outputs or other sources of quantified performance data to be inputted to analytic tools including benefits cost analysis (BCA) and multi-criterion evaluation. This framework appliance composes tolling and pricing studies, capital investment opportunity analyzes and programmatic interpretation. Adequate information about transportation field is a necessary consideration to make in enhancing improved and efficient transportation decision that would yield to longer investment without change of mind. Different process elements need to be available during the transportation decision making so that success will be achieved within a short duration of time functioning.
Capital investment is among the decisions that are essential since everything is undertaken to revolve around capital availability. Least Cost Planning is one of the processes for successful deployment of the analytics for actual decision application. On the other hand, policies such as pricing and limited access facilities need to be evaluated so that the required objective is achieved. For sound decision, economic, environmental, equity and mobility factors should be assessed at an early stage to avoid any problem during the process. All processes done should show transparency, for example, engaging stakeholders meaningfully, disclosing all analytic assumptions, limitations and methods and both overall and component evaluation be published.
Choropleth Mapping of Estimates and Errors of Estimation from the American Community Survey
The American Community Survey (ACS) have played a crucial role in providing information about demographic and socioeconomic and this information has been relied upon by many in planning and making decisions on various context since the information has current estimates and is timely. It is known that ACS estimate information is subject to sampling errors since a smaller sample size are taken as compared to the decennial census data. Despite acknowledgment of the data error in ACS estimates, no methods that have been used to devise methods that account for such error. A focus is made to address ACS data uncertainty issues in choropleth mapping that is one of the widely used methods to explore visually spatial distributions of socio-economic data and demographic.
Census is one of the methods that is used to give us a complete picture of the nation population in diverse areas. Collecting data using estimate method through sampling contribute in errors availability since the date is usually based on samples of the population rather than the full population. Other errors may include coverage error, processing error and item or unit nonresponse. ACS data does not have quality and using it would bring negative implication in future analysis and inferences. On the other hand, choropleth mapping determines class intervals to suitably group structural units. In choropleth mapping, equal interval, same frequency, jerks regular breaks and class reparability are classified appropriately. Map classification maximizes class homogeneity, and similar values are displayed using the same pattern and this help map users in exploring spatial patterns.

Webinar: Transportation Academy: Lessons from the Portland Traffic and Transportation Course
For any planning effort to succeed,community involvement and outreach are a significant part but it is contrary since planners experience difficulties in carrying out this task. Technical knowledge among the residents may be minimal, and, therefore, education is needed to understand the system. Transportation leadership education is a major project to be undertaken since it offers the guide for communities and this create an environment for stimulating the development of any move involved. The Portland and Transportation course are a core aim to the residents since residents’ acquire knowledge about local transportation system developed and how it function. This course is provided by the Portland Bureau of Transportation together with Portland State University. Under this course, citizens acquire knowledge about the complexities of the transportation system. Furthermore, the work of government agencies is humanized, and top agency talent is shared with citizens. This education offered foster community engagement in development solutions that improve the social welfare.
The course is provided to enhance the effectiveness of transportation agencies in meeting the community needs. Once the civic education is motivated through the education offered, transportation decisions that are complex are slowly understood regarding engineering principles, travel behavior, agency constraints, and policy. From this understanding community capacity is developed since there is an interaction of organizational resources, human capital and corporate capital existing in a given community and at the end the common problems are solved and improvement of well-being achieved in the Commonwealth. Moreover, the connection among community members is built, and the link between the community and government is made reducing the difference between the parties.
Three Bridges
The Tilikum Crossing, the Sellwood Bridge, and the Columbia River Crossing are important bridges that have taken the decade, and they have been under intense discussion and analysis. The bridges are in the Portland area where one is already completed, the second is under construction, and the third was canceled in the process of development. With the completion of these bridges, Portland would be connected with other cities promoting ease in the transportation sector regarding lowering the transport budget. Robert Liberty, who was a Metro Councilor, was involved in making a process for all the bridges projects. From his evaluation he realized there was the weakness in how major transportation investment decisions are made and this reflect even the current decisions made in transportation investments.
Due to growing demand and congestion in Portland there was the need to construct bridges that would connect different places and reduce the congestion. Moreover, there was the limitation in public transportation operation and reliability which pushed for a permanent solution to these struggles. Congestion in Portland and Vancouver reduced freight mobility between these two regional markets as well as nationwide and international (Mexico or Canada) terminals along the corridor. With sufficient structure integrity to safely accommodate various vehicle types such as transit vehicles, trucks and emergency vehicles and can withstand moderate seismic events. Capacity needed to be served in future would be available when using Sellwood Bridge since it exceeds any capacity needed at any particular time. Despite the transportation construction process, there is the unsolved issue, and this is the funding sources required in the building of the bridge and completed within the given time. Under the County management, the primary source of funding the project has been identified.
References
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/friday-transportation-seminar-topic-tbd-4
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/evaluation-shared-space-alternative-morgantown-wv

http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/backstory-how-livablestreets-advocates-changed-boston

http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/friday-transportation-seminar-topic-tbd-0

http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/webinar-transport-cost-index-new-comprehensive-performance-measure
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/examining-right-bicycle-synergies-and-tensions-between-human-rights
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/friday-transportation-seminar-topic-tbd-2
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/choropleth-mapping-estimates-and-errors-estimation-american
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/webinar-transportation-academy-lessons-portland-traffic-and
http://trec.pdx.edu/events/professional-development/tbd-8
Frank, A. (2015). Reaching the summit: explorations in meaningful learning through community engagement: International Higher Education Teaching and Learning (HETL)– Scholarship of Teaching and Engagement (SoTE) Conference, Utah Valley University, Orem UT, 20–22 January 2015. Town Planning Review, 86(6), 725-732.

For a custom paper on the above topic, place your order now!

What We Offer:

• On-time delivery guarantee

• PhD-level writers

• Automatic plagiarism check

• 100% money-back guarantee

• 100% Privacy and Confidentiality

• High Quality custom-written paper