Over the past year we’ve reported on stories about the global rise of startups like Uber and Lyft to the feasibility of driverless cars in the near future. While cities nationwide continue to innovate new ways of revitalizing transit and technology brings transportation into a new realm of possibility, CityLab’s Eric Jaffe takes a look back at some of the most recent highlights:
Self-driving car takes on the city
Last April, Google’s famed autonomous car progressed from driving on simple highways to the twists and turns of city streets. In late May, the company also unveiled a compact version of its self-driving car with a goal on the horizon of testing it in California. With such progress in one short year, Google is on track to bring those cars to a city near you.
U.S. embraces high-speed rail
Super fast trains made a splash this year after California’s state budget made room to break ground on its longstanding plan for high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco, receiving 25 percent of California’s cap-and-trade revenue each year moving forward. Some reports estimate between $3 and $5 million in funding annually. The state also announced a winning bid and set a groundbreaking date next month on Jan. 5, 2015. That’s a big commitment to moving forward. But elsewhere in the country, high-speed rail projects have gained traction including a Dallas to Houston line and the beginning of construction on the Miami to Orlando route.
Say Aloha to driverless transit
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is blazing the trail in the U.S. for the first wide-scale urban transit system that is automated. While driverless transit has popped up in cities throughout the world, Honolulu is the first American city to begin soliciting bids for nine stations, including designs for one at its airport. The concept, as experts point out, enables trains to run closer together and provides many safety advantages.
Bicycles go electric
Municipalities have made major advances on enhancing roads to include safe bike paths, and in Cambridge, Mass., a bike company has made strides on creating a new type of bike that could transform the industry. The Cambridge-based mobility company Superpedestrian developed and began taking pre-orders on its Copenhagen Wheel, which turns existing bikes into electric-power bicycles. As CityLab reports, experts estimate the product has the potential to put the U.S. as one of the world’s top e-bike markets within the next two decades.
New York’s “Vision Zero” safety plan
The Big Apple took a page out of Sweden’s playbook earlier this year when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Vision Zero, a plan to bring the city’s traffic-related death and injury statistics down to zero. The city has rolled out several regulations as a part of the plan, including reducing speed limits to 25 miles an hour. San Francisco is also pushing a similar strategy.
MORE: New York City Looks to Stockholm for a Traffic Blueprint
Tag: road safety
The Simple Change to Traffic Lanes That Will Make Our Streets Safer
There’s a well-intentioned but flawed characteristic of America’s roads: They’re way too wide.
The standard 12-foot wide traffic lane we see in most parts of the country are a death trap, according to Jeff Speck’s incredibly detailed and extensively researched essay in The Atlantic’s CityLab.
The Washington D.C-based city planner argues that wider roads cause drivers to travel faster, and thus, cause way more damage if they hit another vehicle, bicyclist or pedestrian. The ideal road width, he contends, is 10-feet wide because drivers will slow down thinking there’s less space to cruise.
The reason why our country’s roads got so wide in the first place is because many states and counties believe that bigger lanes (some as wide as 14-feet) are safer and reduce congestion. However, this design is especially dangerous in communities where there’s more foot traffic.
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Speck points out that even though accidents happen on 10-foot lanes just as often as 12-foot lanes, since cars are traveling slower, it’s less likely to result in a fatality if someone is hit. “According to a broad collection of studies, a pedestrian hit by a car traveling 30 m.p.h. at the time of impact is between seven and nine times as likely to be killed as one hit by a car traveling 20 m.p.h,” he writes.
For those who are wondering if 10 feet is enough space for their large SUV or truck, Speck counters that in his hometown of D.C., there are even 8-foot lanes that work wonderfully.
With 34,000 people killed on American roads annually, it’s time to look at what changes need to be made immediately.
Speck’s most important point is this: “What would happen if these lanes were reduced to 10-feet wide, as proposed? Three things. First, cars would drive more cautiously. Second, there would be roughly eight feet available on each side of the street for creating protected cycle lanes, buffered by solid curbs. Third, the presence of these bike lanes would make the sidewalks safer to walk along. All in all, an easy, relatively inexpensive win-win-win that DOT [the Department of Transportation] could fund tomorrow.”
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How Raised Bike Lanes Can Protect Bikers and Drivers Alike
Cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen have long been recognized for their bike-friendly streets, and now Chicago and San Francisco are looking to their European counterparts for tips on road safety for cyclists.
Next year, San Francisco will unveil its first raised bikeway, a one-block long “showcase” project as a part of the Mission Valencia Green Gateway project, which includes other street improvements like wider sidewalks. Chicago also began building its first one-and-a-half block of raised bike lane this summer, and if the pilot is successful, it will lead to more stretches of the separated path throughout the city.
Raised bike lanes are a subtle way to protect cyclists, separating bikers from cars without the physical bulkiness of barriers. Protected lanes involving barriers can also sometimes make it difficult for drivers who are turning right to see a biker. Barriers can also prove to be confusing to pedestrians and hard to drain or clear away snow.
But the elevated bike paths, which are typically raised by just a few inches above street level, easily prevent cars from interfering, while also remaining separate from the sidewalk. Aside from aesthetic differences, raised bike lanes can also be less costly, according to Fast Company.
Chicago and San Francisco are not the only two cities to experiment with elevated bike lanes. The Oregon cities of Bend, Portland and Eugene, as well as Atlanta and Denver have also incorporated the smart design into their streets.
As more cities recognize the benefits of supporting cyclists, it’s good to see American cities embrace infrastructure that’s proven successful elsewhere.
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The Verdict on Protected Bike Lanes
New York City traffic can be brutal, and adding bike lanes had some locals concerned it would only add to the congested Manhattan streets. But the protected bike lanes has actually improved traffic flow, according to a new report from the city.
The city’s Department of Transportation amassed empirical data on the 30 miles of protected bicycle lanes added across the city since 2007, finding that the bike-friendly paths are a boon to both reducing traffic and pedestrian safety.
The report found that some streets with the newfangled lanes are now faster, due in part to a safety feature requiring cars turning left to wait in a pocket. The new design reduces risk of cars hitting pedestrians and also eliminates cars blocking traffic while waiting to turn.
“Having that left turning area, where you’re able to get out of the flow, you can see the cyclist, the cyclist can see the turning vehicle, you can pause and not feel the pressure from behind to make a quick movement,” says Josh Benson, director of bicycle and pedestrian programs for the city’s Department of Transportation. “That’s a major major safety feature of these type of bike lanes. But it also helps the flow.”
Safety is one of the biggest benefits of adding the lanes, as pedestrian injuries have dropped 22 percent while total injuries are down 20 percent. Crashes with injuries have also decreased by 17 percent. One possible reason why: The bike lanes have shortened crosswalks and made them more visible to drivers.
More interestingly, the city points out the bike lanes have been economically beneficial. Local businesses on streets redesigned with the paths saw an uptick in retail sales and have been associated with more jobs and more tourism foot traffic.
For the city’s anti-cyclists, the new report means the bike safety program is here to stay.
“It’s our plan to do five miles of protected bike lanes every year going forward,” Benson tells Fast Company. “That’s actually about 100 city blocks of protected bike lanes, so that’s a huge chunk of city streets every year.”
But as the report reveals, adding bike lanes is beneficial for every type of transportation on New York’s crowded streets. Next time you’re grumbling about passing cyclists, remember, they’re helping you move faster.
MORE: Here’s a Simple Way to Get Your Community Interested in Better Bike Lanes
The New Way That Tennessee is Reducing Auto Fatalities
If you place a candy bar in front of a young boy, you can predict that he’s going to eat it. And if it’s cloudy outside, you might be able to predict that it’s going to rain. But is there any way that you can predict where a car crash is going to happen?
Turns out, you can — by using predictive analytics. And that’s exactly the technology that Tennessee is tapping to promote traffic safety and prevent major accidents from happening.
Under the “Crash Reduction Analyzing Statistical History” (C.R.A.S.H.) program, Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) officers factor in data points ranging from festivals and sporting events to weather patterns and areas with a history of accidents to create predictions of where they should deploy their resources.
The program spans five-by-six-mile squares, providing predictions for four-hour periods each day.
“So it might show that between 6 and 10 p.m. the probability of a serious crash is 68 percent in this block,” said THP Colonel Tracy Trott.. “And that’s where the captain should direct his resources.”
The goal of the six month-old program is to give officers a heads up to help prevent crashes or to be nearby should one happen. While nothing is 100 percent accurate, C.R.A.S.H. has been right 72 percent of the time since its inception.
“You have some days when the predictions are right on, and other days when they’re way off,” said Beth Rowan, a THP statistical analyst working on the program. “Mainly what you want to look for is whether the performance of the model is acceptable. And collectively, it’s been very good.”
Traffic fatalities have dropped around 5.5 percent from this time last year, leading officials to view C.R.A.S.H. as being effective, according to Trott.
The software has the capability to factor in any data point while also dismissing points that may not be pertinent. THP has also implemented a model to focus on drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, using informatoin like the locations of vendors who sell alcohol.
“The model itself goes through and identifies, if you will, what the most important characteristics are,” Rowan said. “You put everything in that you can, and the model tells you what is important and what’s not.”
The entire program cost THP $243,000, with funding provided through federal grants from the Governors Highway Safety Office. While Tennessee is not the only state beginning to implement predictive analytic software, only a handful of states are using it for traffic patterns, according to IBM’s public safety specialist Mike Reade.
“Oftentimes veteran law enforcement officers will be making those predictions themselves when they’re in the field,” Reade said. “What we do is put a lot of data and fact behind it. The volume of factual data we’re using can’t be done by a human. You need an analytical tool like this to sift through the volumes of data — years of traffic data — to come up with this type of foresight.”
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