Guidelines for Analysis of Investments in Bicycle Facilities (2006)

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BACKGROUND Transportation planning and policy efforts at all levels of government aim to increase levels of walking and bicycling. To make the best use of limited transportation funds there is a critical need for better information about two important considerations relating to bicycle facilities. The first of these is the cost of different bicycle investment options. The second is the value of the effects such investments have on bicycle use and mode share, including the resulting environmental, economic, public health, and social benefits. Deci- sions on transportation projects are typically based on the potential for the project to contribute to broad public policy goals. As such, information on the benefits and costs of bicycle facility projects will help decisionmakers develop modal options and provide travelers with more transportation choices. ESTIMATING BICYCLE FACILITY COSTS The purpose of the benefit-cost analysis is to provide transportation planners with information to estimate costs of different types of bicycle facilities. The facilities described are generic and independent of specific locations. The discussion therefore provides a preliminary cost estimate. As more specific information is gathered about a proposed facility, the planner, engineer, or project manager can develop more refined estimates to reflect these specifics or replace them with more detailed project-specific estimates. Costs for infrastructure projects are commonly divided into two major categories: capital costs and operating costs. Capital costs are expenditures for constructing facilities and procuring equipment. These are viewed as one time costs that have both a physical and an economic life of multiple years. Capital facilities and equipment have a multi-year life, and therefore are assets whose value can be amortized over time and financed over time with instruments such as municipal bonds. Operating costs generally result in no tangible asset. Such recurring expenses are commonly funded through annual budgets. Operating costs for public facilities include maintenance such as cleaning, landscaping, equipment repair, security and safety, and supplies needed to conduct these activities. Some or all of these operating costs may be SUMMARY GUIDELINES FOR ANALYSIS OF INVESTMENTS IN BICYCLE FACILITIES

subsumed into public agency operating budgets and be difficult to identify as discrete project-specific costs. In this report, bicycle facilities are divided into three categories: on-street, off-street, and equipment. A bicycle facility project may include elements in one or more categories. There are different facility types within each of the categories, each of which are grouped in the cost model as described below. • On-Street Facilities: On-street bicycle facilities include bike lanes, wide curb lanes, shared streets, and signed routes. • Off-Street Facilities: Off-street bicycle facilities are separate from the motor-vehicle oriented roadway and are often shared use paths or trails. The trails may be adjacent to the roadway, on an abandoned railroad right of way (ROW), or on another sepa- rate facility such as through public parks. The three types of path surfaces reviewed were stone dust (fine crushed stone), bituminous concrete, and portland cement concrete. Other elements that can cause costs to vary widely are bridges, drainage, and fencing. • Equipment: Bicycle facility equipment includes signs, traffic signals, barriers, park- ing, and conveyance. Installation costs will vary depending on the type of equipment. To identify and develop input data for the bicycle facility cost model, the research team reviewed a broad range of data sources. The objective was to identify unit costs for the project elements described. Data sources included transportation professionals, a literature review, and industry information drawn from completed projects, agency estimates, and bid prices. The research team used this information to develop an interactive spreadsheet for trans- portation planners that estimates costs for new bicycle facilities. The tool uses a database of unit cost to allow planners to develop a preliminary cost estimate for various facilities. The cost model provides a comprehensive estimate of capital costs including construction, procurement and installation of equipment, design, and project administration costs. Costs are based on typical standard facilities constructed in the continental United States and are represented in year 2002 dollars. Indices are provided to adjust for inflation to the project build year and regional variations in construction costs. As projects advance from early planning into design, project specifications will become more precise and the design engi- neer’s estimates will provide a more reliable estimate of construction costs. Accordingly, this application includes substantial contingencies to account for both the preliminary nature of the cost estimates and the absence of detailed project specifications. MEASURING AND FORECASTING THE DEMAND FOR BICYCLING Estimating the demand for different types of cycling facilities forms the basis to esti- mate user travel time and cost savings as well as reduced traffic congestion, energy con- sumption, and air pollution. Several relatively comprehensive reviews exist that estimate the demand for non-motorized travel. Rather than simply review these existing reports, the focus here is on supplementing the knowledge gained from these reports with new per- spective and original research. Doing so provides two contributions: (1) a better under- standing of the actual amount of cycling based on different types of settings and (2) a detailed analysis to predict the amount of cycling relative to cycling facilities for the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. The former is a basis for a simple sketch plan- ning model for bicycle planners to estimate demand in local areas. The latter describes many of the difficulties associated with suggested practices of predicting demand. Such difficulties limit the applicability of traditional demand modeling applications. The findings in this report are based on the research detailing the relationship between an individual’s likelihood to bike and the proximity of that individual’s residence to a bike facility. The report is also based on research that indicates that the majority of bicycle riding is done by a small percentage of the population. Bicycle commuters primarily 2

make up this subset of the population. Thus, areas with large numbers of bicycle com- muters usually indicate locations where more bicycling takes place. BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF BICYCLE FACILITIES A key aspect of promoting bicycling and walking is to ensure that adequate facilities exist to encourage use of these modes. For walking, this includes sidewalks, public spaces, and street crossings. For bicycling, this includes paved shoulders, bicycle lanes, wide curb lanes, on-street or off-street bike paths, and even parking or showers at the workplace. However, bicycle facilities cost money and their merits are often called into question. Many consider spending public monies on them a luxury. Planners and other transporta- tion specialists often find themselves justifying these facilities, claiming that they benefit the common good and induce additional bicycle use. Especially in austere economic times, planners often seek ways to “economize” such facilities. A review of existing literature reveals wide variation in perspectives and in the kinds of information expected by different stakeholder groups. The central challenge for urban planners, policy officials, and researchers from closely aligned fields is to focus on the benefits of bicycle facilities that pointedly satisfy certain criteria. After reviewing existing literature, canvassing available data and methods, and consulting a variety of policy officials, the team suggests that to be most useful for urban transportation planning, bicycling benefits need to be • Measured on a municipal or regional scale, • Central to assisting decision-makers about transportation/urban planning, • Estimable via available existing data or other survey means, • Converted to measures comparable to one another, and • Described for both users and non-users (i.e., the community at large). There are several ways to describe the different types of benefits and to whom they apply. The suggested strategy for considering benefits of different facilities is guided by previous research. The first level distinguishes between benefits realized by the user versus the community at large. These can also be thought of as direct and indirect bene- fits. Within each of these user groups, one can identify specific types of benefits. The team identifies, prescribes, and demonstrates strategies to measure different types of benefits within each user group. BENEFIT-COST ANALYSIS OF BICYCLE FACILITIES The team completed extensive research to reliably quantify the value individuals ascribe to various bicycle facilities. For example, using a combination of primary data analysis, secondary data analysis, and literature review, this research uncovered the following: • An on-street bicycle lane is valued at 16.3 min, not having parking along a route is valued at 8.9 min, and an off-road improvement is valued at 5.2 min, assuming a typical 20-min bicycle commute; • Three types of facilities are valued differently by urbanites and suburbanites when measuring the effect of access to cycling-related infrastructure on home values. For example, a home 400 m closer to an off-street facility in an urban area nets $510; • Individuals who attain at least 30 min of physical activity per day receive an annual per capita cost savings of between $19 and $1,175 with a median value of $128; • Savings per mile in terms of reducing congestion are assumed to be 13 cents in urban areas, 8 cents in suburban areas, and 1 cent in towns and rural areas. Based on such findings and other analysis, the team crafted a set of guidelines to be used by transportation professionals and government agencies to better integrate the planning 3

of bicycle facilities into the transportation planning process. The web-based guidelines (available at: http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/bikecost/) assist state departments of trans- portation and other state, regional, and local agencies in considering bicycling in all transportation projects. Additionally, the guidelines will support local agencies’ review of bicycle projects as part of their transportation improvement plan. Transportation planners will be able to use the guidelines for the following purposes: • Estimating the cost of specific facilities on the basis of type and key characteristics, • Estimating how a facility will impact the overall bicycling environment in an area, and implicitly how it will affect the amount of riding based on characteristics of the facility and of the surrounding area, • If information is available for calibration, estimating the usage of a facility and the change in usage of complementary and/or competing facilities, • Estimating the specific types of benefits and their relative sizes based on charac- teristics of the facility and of the surrounding area. The guidelines consist of a “tree” of questions, starting with general information and working toward more specific details. The first step of the interactive tool is to choose the geographic location and type of facility to be considered. Questions then work from the general to the specific, refining the results (and the subsequent questions) as more infor- mation becomes available. The program only asks questions applicable to the facility type and types of analysis requested. For example, pavement type only applies to cost analysis, but the setting (urban/suburban/rural) applies to cost, demand, and benefits. In the end, users are presented with an estimate of the costs, demand, and benefits of the proposed facility. While all the cost, demand, and benefit figures in the tool are calculated from previously available sources, the web tool is the first attempt to bring this kind of information together in an easy-to-use application. The tool can be used at many levels: a neighborhood group considering lobbying for a facility might input minimal specifications to get ballpark figures, while a professional planner could enter highly detailed information and receive substantially more accurate cost, demand, and benefit output. INTRODUCTION Planning and policy efforts at all levels of transportation planning aim to increase levels of walking and bicycling. Such enthusiasm is shared by travel researchers, trans- portation professionals, public health practitioners, and policymakers. In many cases, initiatives are motivated by a desire to reduce auto use and its attendant environmental consequences (e.g., pollution and natural resource consumption). They may also be moti- vated by concerns of livability, public health, or physical activity. In response, urban planners, transportation specialists, elected officials, and health advocates are all looking to non-motorized travel to address myriad concerns, whether they are environmental, congestion, health, or quality of life. Such initiatives are not new. For example, 10 years ago The National Bicycling and Walking Study (1) put forth the goal to double the level of bicycling (and walking) in the United States. A Federal Action Plan was subsequently developed to spur this process. In the period since this landmark publication, much has been done to promote bicycling for recreation and as a mode of transportation, including increased funding for facilities. However, there remains a particularly weak foundation of knowledge to guide estimates for how facilities for bicycling and walking could be better valued. To make the best use of limited transportation funds there is a critical need for better information about two important aspects of bicycle facilities. The first is the costs of different bicycle investment options. The second is the value and effects such investments will have on bicycle use and mode share, including the resulting environmental, economic, 4

public health, and social benefits. Decisions on transportation projects are typically based on the potential for the project to contribute to broad public policy goals. Such informa- tion as it relates to bicycle projects assists decisionmakers in developing modal options and providing travelers with more transportation choices. This research project developed guidelines to measure the benefits and costs in order to achieve the following principal objectives: • Help compare investments in bicycling with other modes, • Provide tools and knowledge for choosing bicycle facilities, and • Integrate cycling—and its benefits and costs—into the general transportation planning process. Some goals, such as minimizing costs, can be quantified and are relatively straight- forward. Such analysis is usually addressed as an element of traditional benefit-cost analysis and this estimation is essential to capital improvement project evaluation. The degree to which such estimates have been applied to bicycle facilities is scant. Estimating the benefits is considerably more challenging due to lack of data and lack of available robust methodologies. Even procedures for estimating the demand of cycling are fraught with difficulty. Assuming the demand for cycling is known and can be quantified, its value is difficult to convert to a monetary measure. For example, levels of various types of air pollutants are continually measured, but there is a range of estimates around the monetary value that should be associated with a given level of a pollutant. Other benefits, such as the ability to contribute to strong communities or “smart growth” initiatives are particularly elusive. This report contains the results of research centered on three con- tributions that pertain to cycling facilities including determining costs, the demand, and monetary benefits that result. The guidelines developed as part of this project are designed to be used by transporta- tion planners, policy advisors, elected officials, project managers, engineers, and advocates and representatives from neighborhood organizations. This report refers to this broad group as planners or transportation planners. The report is made up of three parts. The first part (Chapter 1) describes a method for transportation planners to estimate the costs of different types of bicycle facilities. The model responds to user inputs (based on characteristics of a proposed bicycle facility) and provides the user with baseline knowledge on estimated costs. An example of the cost model is shown in Table 1. The second part (Chapter 2) outlines a “sketch planning” method to estimate the number of daily bicyclists in an area using readily available data. The sketch planning tool is based on extensive literature review and research that drive its application. Two aims of this application are to (1) ascertain the nature of the facility being considered (e.g., geographic scope, type of facility) and (2) determine the type of demand estimate desired (e.g., use of a particular facility and expected increase in total demand resulting from a new facility). The tool provides a range of possible demand levels for a given situation based on National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) and census commute to work data. This research provides the impetus for creating a tool in which the user is also able to choose an estimate based on a range by applying local knowledge. The third part (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) describes the process used to develop guidelines to measure benefits associated with bicycle mobility improvement. Chapter 3 offers strate- gies used to estimate various types of economic benefits from bicycle facilities. Benefits to users include increased mobility, health, and safety. Benefits to the community include decreased auto use and improved livability and fiscal conditions (see Figure 1). Chapter 4 describes how the research from the previous three chapters is translated into guidelines. Chapter 5 provides ideas for applying the guidelines to the transportation planning process. Appendices A through J follow the main body of the report and provide details on the methodology for the research contained with this report. 5

6Itemized COSTS ITEM DESCRIPTION Units Length (Feet) Width (Feet) Depth (Inches) BASE YR (2002) UNIT City Boston State Code MAB Build Year 2002 1.00 Roadway Construction 1.10 Earthwork 1.11 Clearing and Grubbing 1,703$ acre -$ 1.12 Excavation 6 15$ cu yd -$ 1.13 Grading 2,108$ acre -$ 1.14 Pavement Removal 14$ cu yd -$ 1.15 Curb/Gutter Removal 4$ l ft -$ - Earthwork Contingency 10% -$ 1.20 Pavement 1.21 Portland Cement Concrete Pavement 5 142$ cu yd -$ 1.22 Bituminous Concrete Pavement 3 135$ cu yd -$ 1.23 Crushed Stone Surface 3 37$ cu yd -$ 1.24 Aggregate Base 4 28$ cu yd -$ 1.25 Curbing 22$ l ft -$ 1.26 Curb Ramps 1,068$ each -$ 1.30 Drainage 1.31 Storm Drains 113$ l ft -$ 1.40 Pavement Markings 1.41 Bicycle Arrow 53$ each -$ 1.42 Bicycle Symbol 71$ each -$ 1.43 Bicycle Box (colored pavement) 9$ sqft -$ 1.44 Lane Striping 3,266$ mile -$ 1.45 Shared Lane Marking (sharrow) 71$ each -$ 1.50 Landscaping 1.51 Landscaping - Grass 1,363$ acre -$ 1.52 Landscaping - Trail 27,188$ mile -$ 1.53 Root Dams 11$ l ft -$ 2.00 Structures 2.10 Bridge 2.12 Bridge Deck (concrete or steel) 16 91$ sqft -$ 2.13 Abutments 17,273$ each -$ - Bridge Contingency 10% -$ 2.20 Underpass 2.21 Underpass 3,840$ l ft -$ - Construction Estimate -$ - Location Index 125% -$ - Construction Contingency 10% -$ TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST -$ English UnitsInput TABLE 1 Cost worksheet example Beneficiary To the User (direct) To the Community (indirect) Mobility -enhanced conditions -shorter travel distance Health -increased physical activity -decreased health care costs Safety -decreased crashes -increased comfort Reduced Auto Use -decreased congestion -reduced pollution Livability -proximity to recreational amenities -increased open space Fiscal -increased economic activity -decreased taxes Figure 1. Schematic presentation of benefits by type.