Browsing by Subject "Multimodal transportation"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Access in Appalachia Pilot Implementation Project
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2024-05) Jain, Saumya; Lind, Eric; Owen, Andrew; Liu, Shirley Shiqin
    The Access in Appalachia Pilot Implementation Project report is an exploration of transportation accessibility within the Appalachian Region. Here, Accessibility means the ease with which people can travel to valued destinations. Commissioned by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and led by the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, this project represents a significant leap forward in the understanding of the intersections between economic development, land use, and transportation infrastructure. Through innovative methodologies this project measures, analyzes, and visualizes the access of Appalachian residents to critical opportunities, including jobs, education, healthcare, entertainment, and intermodal freight facilities. The analyses reveal critical insights into transportation dynamics, land use practices, and accessibility nuances, often marked by the urban vs rural landscape within the Appalachian region, offering pathways for strategic development. The report highlights need for tailored transportation strategies, informed decision-making, and equitable planning to address the diverse needs of Appalachia's varied landscapes to foster socio-economic growth.
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    Advancing Transportation Equity: Research and Practice
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2019-02) Van Dort, Leoma; Guthrie, Andrew; Fan, Yingling; Baas, Gina; yingling@umn.edu
    Transportation contributes to many societal outcomes, including employment, health, and wealth. However, disparities and inequities in transportation systems, services, and decision-making processes disproportionately impact underserved and underrepresented communities. This study seeks to create a better understanding of current research and practice and recommend future research and practice that can advance transportation equity in Minnesota. To that end, the research team conducted a literature review that summarizes recent developments in the field of transportation equity, reviewed existing equity-focused programs within and beyond the transportation sector, and engaged multiple stakeholder groups, including a project advisory group with experts in addressing disparities and inequities, a group of transportation users and equity stakeholders, and community members. The study presents a working definition of transportation equity, recommends action steps for MnDOT and its partners to consider in advancing transportation equity, and identifies directions for future research and practice that can advance transportation equity in the state of Minnesota.
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    Bike, Bus, and Beyond: Extending Cyclopath to Enable Multi- Modal Routing
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2013-07) Terveen, Loren
    This project addressed several MnDOT critical issues and strategic directions: easing congestion and improving mobility by making multi-modal transit options more easily accessible. It did so by extending the Cyclopath bicycle route-finding system to support multi-modal routes that combine cycling and transit. This required extensions to the route-finding algorithm – to combine biking and transit appropriately – and user interface – to let users express modal preferences and enhance the visual presentation of routes, e.g., to mark mode shifts. We used the Graphserver open-source software to as the routing engine; by building on existing software, we reduced development effort. We conducted interviews with a number of multimodal transit users to guide the design of the user interface.
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    Driving change: Exploring the adoption of multimodal local traffic impact assessment practices
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2021) Combs, Tabitha S.; McDonald, Noreen C.
    Local governments are increasingly recognizing the need to improve multimodal mobility. Using interviews with officials in 36 eastern US communities, we explore factors influencing the adoption of new traffic-impact-assessment (TIA) practices that support multimodal objectives. We focus on communities' motivations and supports for multimodal-oriented practices, as well as challenges they face in adopting these practices. By examining both the prevalence of multimodal-supportive TIA practices adopted by our study communities and the motivations for and challenges to adopting these practices, we identify pathways through which transportation researchers can better support communities' efforts to more closely align their TIA practices with desired multimodal-supportive outcomes.
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    How Do Complete Streets Matter for Communities? The Case of Richfield, Minnesota
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2020-07) Phinney, Robin; Fonseca, Camila; Bean, Nathan; Zhao, Jerry Zhirong
    Municipalities across Minnesota have turned to Complete Streets in an attempt to develop more usable roads for their residents. This report investigates how Complete Streets are reshaping one Minnesota community. In 2013, Richfield, a suburb of Minneapolis, enacted a particularly innovative Complete Streets policy. Known locally as "Richfield Sweet Streets," the program has led to the reconstruction of several major roads across the city. Richfield's Sweet Streets program is unique in that it incorporates a modal hierarchy in which users are prioritized differently in road redesign and reconstruction. It relies on extensive community engagement, aiming to improve outcomes for individuals and the community as a whole. This research presents a baseline analysis of how Richfield's Sweet Streets projects are affecting the local community, while identifying a set of methods and measures for future research. The analysis draws on multiple sources of data to better understand the nature and consequences of Richfield's Sweet Streets for user experience and livability, economic vitality, transportation and safety, and individual and community health. The research aims to illustrate Richfield's innovative approach to transforming its transportation infrastructure while providing a roadmap for future analyses of the impacts of Richfield's Sweet Streets.
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    Multimodal Connections with Transitways: Ridership, Access Mode, and Route Choice Implications
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2019-03) Guthrie, Andrew; Fan, Yingling; Khani, Alireza; Nowak, Jacqueline
    Transitways—premium transit corridors employing technologies such as Light Rail Transit or Bus Rapid Transit—often depend on a variety of access and egress modes to connect users with their trip origins and destinations. This study seeks to create better understanding of how users access transitway stations by applying mode choice models, route choice models, and direct ridership models. Choice models were applied to revealed-preference transit passenger data from the Twin Cities show key components to user decisions regarding how to reach high-quality transit. To explore users’ choice of routes through the transit systems, schedule-based shortest path and multi-criterion shortest path algorithms were combined to investigate whether transit riders choose to take the shortest path between their origin and destination, a subjectively shortest path, or neither. In terms of ridership models, Poisson regression model were used to estimate average weekday boardings at transitway stations in 10 regions around the United States as a function of pedestrian, bicycle, and bus connections.
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    Rural and Small Urban Multimodal Alternatives for Minnesota
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2014-11) Becker, Carol
    This paper looks at alternatives for promoting and strengthening multimodal transportation in rural and small urban areas. It outlines 65 different innovative activities around the United States that have been undertaken to promote multimodalism in rural areas and smaller towns. These activities are grouped into six categories: improving transit options; accommodating alternative vehicles; supporting pedestrian and bicycle travel; multimodal land use planning; the use of financial incentives to promote multimodal land use development; and other alternatives that do not fit in these five categories. From this, six case studies have been developed. These case studies include retrofitting sidewalks in Olympia Washington: the network of interurban transit options in North Dakota; providing mileage reimbursement for seniors arranging their own rides in Mesa Arizona; the State of Oregon’s “Main Street as a Highway” guidance for integrating highways into the fabric of smaller towns; the use to transportation impact fees to fund transportation infrastructure, including concurrency fees, development fees and special district fees; and a “Complete Streets” project in Clinton, Iowa.