Browsing by Author "Munnich, Lee W. Jr."

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    Evaluating the Effectiveness of State Toward Zero Deaths Programs
    (Center for Excellence in Rural Safety, 2012-11) Munnich, Lee W. Jr.; Douma, Frank; Qin, Xiao; Thorpe, J. David; Wang, Kai
    Since 2001 approximately 30 U.S. states have adopted programs to reduce traffic fatalities to zero with names such as Vision Zero, Target Zero, or Toward Zero Deaths (TZD). TZD is now being promoted as a national strategy by a coalition of transportation and safety groups. Successful TZD programs have five characteristics: 1) an ambitious goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries; 2) high levels of inter-agency cooperation in pursuit of the TZD goal among state departments of transportation, public safety, health, and other relevant agencies; 3) a comprehensive strategy addressing all 4 E’s – engineering, enforcement, education, and EMS elements of traffic safety; 4) a performance-based, data-driven system of targeting resources and strategies where they will have the greatest impact in reducing traffic fatalities; and 5) policy leadership from relevant entities, including the Governor, the state legislature, and the heads of state agencies. While many of the state TZD programs are relatively new and emerging, four state programs have been around long enough to have enough years of crash data to evaluate the impacts of the programs – Minnesota, Idaho, Utah and Washington. Statistical tests on these four programs support the conclusion that implementing TZD programs accelerates the reduction of fatality rates. The acceleration rate varies from state to state, taking time for a new program to gain its full effect. Although each state has different degrees of temporal effect of its TZD program, the average effect is more and more apparent over time.
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    I-394 Phase II Planning Study
    (Center for Transportation Studies, 2010-07) Munnich, Lee W. Jr.; Buckeye, Kenneth
    The I-394 MnPASS Phase II Planning Study was a multi-agency collaboration that evaluated four major study elements and their relationships in a congestion priced urban corridor. These included transit, land use, infrastructure and telecommuting. A foundation for this work was the understanding that high-cost capacity expansions were not likely to occur in the corridor for 25 to 30 years despite forecasts of increasing congestion that may threaten efficiency gains achieved with conversion of the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to high- occupancy toll (HOT) lane operation. Recommendations identified in this study are being used to guide investments in corridor facilities and services by transportation authorities and will also be used by communities adjacent to the corridor. Transit supportive land use recommendations, if implemented, can help ensure that a high level of service is maintained in the corridor for all users. While specific funding for implementation of these recommendations was not identified prior to the planning process, several compelling transit, land use and telecommuting recommendations are currently being advanced for programming. This project is a valuable case study and potential model for linking land use, transit, telecommuting and congestion pricing in a high-demand urban corridor.