Personal Travel: The Long and Short of It
Colin R. Leech
Forwarded from the transp-l mailing list:
Murakami, Elaine <FHWA> (Elaine....@fhwa.dot.gov) wrote:
>
> Call for Papers
> Personal Travel: The Long and Short of It
> June 28-July 1, 1999
> Watergate Hotel
> Washington, DC
> TRB - National Data Task Force
> Alan Pisarski, Chair
>
> Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) and the American Travel
> Survey (ATS), both conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation,
> together provide a complete description of personal travel by residents of the
> United States.
>
> A conference is now scheduled for June of 1999. This is the first time the
> results of both surveys will be presented together in a joint conference. At
> this conference, both federally commissioned papers and papers accepted from
> this Call will be presented. Papers will be reviewed by a conference steering
> committee, chaired by Alan Pisarski.
>
> We are looking for papers using one or both of the personal travel surveys for:
> * economic impacts of transportation, linking the NPTS and the ATS to the
> Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, the HUD American
> Housing Survey, or other national data
>
> * understanding the link between land use and transportation, such as the
> effect of household density and/or the mix of land-use types, on the amount
> and type of travel (including non-motorized)
>
> * understanding the interplay of social and demographic characteristics and
> travel behavior, including life cycle and household composition, and travel by
> special segments of the population such as elderly and low-income.
>
> * issues important to federal policy in transportation, energy, and the
> environment, state-wide and metropolitan transportation planning, such as
> factors effecting the amount of time spent in travel, mode choice, and trip
> length characteristics
>
> * methodological issues in personal travel surveys emphasizing the comparison
> and use of data from different surveys
>
> A one-page abstract of the paper topic is due Sept. 8, 1998. Authors will be
> notified within 30 days of receipt of the abstracts whether the paper will be
> accepted. Papers are due February 15, 1999. To submit abstracts or for
> further information, contact:
>
> Nancy McGuckin
> Federal Highway Administration
> HPM-40
> Washington, DC 20590
> (202) 366-0160 phone
> (202) 366-7742 fax
> Nancy.M...@fhwa.dot.gov
>
> OR
>
> Lee Giesbrecht
> Bureau of Transportation Statistics
> K-20
> 400 7th St SW
> Washington, DC 20590
> 202-366-0649 phone
> 202-366-3640 FAX
> Lee.Gie...@bts.gov
>
--
#### |\^/| Colin R. Leech ag414 or crl...@freenet.carleton.ca
#### _|\| |/|_ Civil engineer by training, transport planner by choice.
#### > < Opinions are my own. You may consider them shareware.
#### >_./|\._< "If you can't return a favour, pass it on." - A.L. Brown
Justthefacts
There is a debate over in austin.gen over converting some existing
downtown one way streets back to two way.The two-way people are saying
that one way streets are somehow holding back revitalization of the
downtown grid. they want to spend $300,000- $900,000 to return to the
two way street.
Does anyone in these other newsgroups know of places that have done
this?
Some of the thread so far.....
"
> Those against 2-way, including our localtraffic engineers, have
> characterized their positions as engineering-data-supported, scientific, dispassionate truths.
> They were in reality products of unsupported intuitive thought and
> regurgitation of previously heard drivel.
> None of our engineers ( meaning Austin's) or anyone who testified against 2-way in the recentdebate had studied or spoken to other cities involved in two way conversions, traffic circles. Those processes are now underway on such major thoroughfares as Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, CA. Hardly unimportant or very dissimilar to our streets.
>
OK so tell us about the other locations where this is happening..what
is the cost, what are the results, how are they similiar to downtown
Austin....
Can any readers on these other newsgroups advise us?
Colin R. Leech
Reposted:
James Guthrie
cite. It will be implemented over our summer (July Aug) but there is not a
formal tracking means in place so far as I know to assess if the results are
as intended. I have linked my posting to our internal people, in case they
wish to comment.
Edmonton has 650,000 pop in a metro area of 850,000 and is a provincial
capital, regional commercial centre, and base for oil and gas field
production, so there are some analogies with Austin.
We are however subject to something called Winter, which you are not <grin>!
Justthefacts wrote in message <358C3E...@swbell.net>...
MaryKDan
>>There is a debate over in austin.gen over converting some existing
>>downtown one way streets back to two way.The two-way people are saying
>>that one way streets are somehow holding back revitalization of the
>>downtown grid. they want to spend $300,000- $900,000 to return to the
>>two way street.
>>
Fresno, California did this three years ago. I moved away just after the
transition so I can't say exactly what the results have been, but you can
probably find some sources in city government, at CSU Fresno, and at the Fresno
Bee who have some opinions. In the meantime, I'll give you mine:
IMHO, it was a dumb idea. In the 1960s, Fresno ripped its primary business
street in the downtown area, Fulton Street, and converted it to an outdoor
pedestrian mall -- it was the first in the nation. But outdoor malls in a
place where temps over 100° are common are not a good idea to begin with, and,
as the affluent shoppers took their business to the air-conditioned malls on
the north side, a trip to the downtown mall meant paying to park, parking a
considerable distance from the mall, and dodging transients and other
undesirables.
The brilliant city council missed all of these probelms and decided that the
problem was ... get this... that Van Ness and Broadway, the two-one way streets
that formed a ring around the mall area, were too efficient in moving traffic.
What downtown Fresno needed was two way streets to slow people down!
Colin and others of his ilk who post in threads that I no longer read might
think that this is a great solution, but don't be suckered in. Make Austin
address the problems!
- Dan Stober
West Jordan, Utah