Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation Along Existing Roads—ActiveTrans Priority Tool Guidebook (2015)

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N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP REPORT 803 Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation Along Existing Roads—ActiveTrans Priority Tool Guidebook Peter A. Lagerwey Michael J. Hintze James B. Elliott Jennifer L. Toole Toole Design group Silver Spring, MD Robert J. Schneider universiTy of Wisconsin–MilWaukee Milwaukee, WI i n a s s o c i a t i o n w i t h Kittelson & Associates, Inc. Reston, VA Subscriber Categories Pedestrians and Bicyclists • Administration and Management • Planning and Forecasting TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2015 www.TRB.org Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. 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Published reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at: http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America NCHRP REPORT 803 Project 07-17 ISSN 0077-5614 ISBN 978-0-309-30854-0 Library of Congress Control Number 2015934797 © 2015 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. 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C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This guidebook was prepared under NCHRP Project 07-17 by Toole Design Group, LLC. Peter Lagerwey was the Principal Investigator. Robert Schneider, Ph.D., Assistant Professor University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee served as the Co-Principal Investigator. In addition to Mr. Lagerwey and Dr. Schneider, primary authors of this report included Michael Hintze, AICP, LEED® AP; James Elliott, AICP; and Jennifer Toole, AICP, ASLA of Toole Design Group. Contributing authors included Karla Kingsley; Matt Bell; Joe Bessman, P.E., P.T.O.E.; Erin Ferguson, P.E.; and Jessica Horning of Kittelson & Associates, Inc., as well as Benjamin Sigrist (Toole Design Group), Daniel Goodman, AICP (when with Toole Design Group) and Jamie Parks (when with Kittelson & Associates). CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP REPORT 803 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Christopher J. Hedges, Manager, National Cooperative Highway Research Program Sheila A. Moore, Program Associate Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Scott E. Hitchcock, Editor NCHRP PROJECT 07-17 PANEL Field of Traffic—Area of Traffic Planning J. Michael Y. Ereti, Gunda Corporation, Houston, TX (Chair) Ilona Ottilia Kastenhofer, Virginia DOT, Charlottesville, VA Melissa A. Anderson, US Access Board, Washington, DC Catherine Lynn Cagle, Waltham, MA Frederick C. Dock, City of Pasadena DOT, Pasadena, CA Margaret M. “Peggy” Gibbs, Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, North Vancouver, BC Sarah W. O’Brien, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC Christopher B. Douwes, FHWA Liaison Matthew Lesh, FTA Liaison Jameelah Hayes, AASHTO Liaison Bernardo Kleiner, TRB Liaison

This guidebook presents the “ActiveTrans Priority Tool (APT),” a step-by-step method- ology for prioritizing improvements to pedestrian and bicycle facilities, either separately or together as part of a “complete streets” evaluation approach. The methodology is flexible, allowing the user to assign goals and values that reflect those of the agency and the commu- nity. It is also transparent, breaking down the process into a series of discrete steps that can be easily documented and communicated to the public. The guidebook is supplemented by a CD that contains a programmed spreadsheet to facilitate implementation of the ActiveTrans methodology, as well as a final report that documents the research approach, findings, and conclusions.* The guidebook will be very useful to planners and other staff responsible for the most effective allocation of scarce resources to where they will provide the most benefit. Conditions for pedestrians along existing roads and bridges have wide-ranging impacts on whether public transportation services are used, whether students walk to school, whether people walk to local services, and whether people walk for general health. Over the years, sidewalks have not been included on many arterial, collector, or even local roads and bridges on the United States road network. Where sidewalk segments do exist along roadways, they are often not connected, leaving the sidewalk networks fragmented. The accessibility of the road system for pedestrians is inhibited not only by the lack of sidewalks, but also on other missing facilities such as safe crossing areas and waiting areas for transit services. The lack of adequate bicycle facilities has also been an issue. While bicyclists can take advantage of the existing roadway system, there are situations in which improved facilities would be particularly beneficial. These situations may involve younger and inexperienced riders or areas where there are large differentials in speed between bicycle and vehicular traffic (e.g., high-speed rural roads and freeways). When needs are addressed with limited resources, the basic steps to fulfilling these needs include identifying the problem, quantifying the problem, identifying cost-effective solu- tions, prioritizing needs, securing funding, and ensuring implementation. These steps are well established for new highway projects at the federal, state, and local levels, where well- developed methodologies, processes, and dedicated funding sources exist to improve con- ditions for vehicular traffic. However, such processes are rarely in place to add or improve F O R E W O R D By Christopher J. Hedges Staff Officer Transportation Research Board *Notice to readers regarding the CD accompanying this report, CRP-CD-163: the CD menu will only open in Silverlight-compatible browsers. If your browser does not have the Silverlight plugin installed, you will be prompted to install or activate the plugin. See the readme file on the disk for further information.

pedestrian or bicycle facilities to the existing roadway network. In fact, the number of pedestrian and bicyclist facilities that would benefit from retrofitting is largely unknown. Furthermore, walking and biking needs are often considered jointly within an organization, although the needs of each may be quite different. Under NCHRP Project 07-17, a research team led by the Toole Design Group developed ActiveTrans, a prioritization tool and guidebook based on an extensive review of research and in-depth interviews. ActiveTrans takes the user through a prioritization process using 10 essential steps: defining the purpose of the prioritization exercise, selecting factors that reflect agency and community objectives, assigning weights to the various factors, select- ing variables that can be measured, assessing available data, assessing available technical resources, setting up the tool, measuring and inputting data, scaling the variables to ensure they are comparable, and creating a list of projects in priority ranking. The draft methodol- ogy was pilot tested in 11 separate agencies, and the feedback acquired was used to enhance and refine the final version.

Note: Photographs, figures, and tables in this report may have been converted from color to grayscale for printing. The electronic version of the report (posted on the web at www.trb.org) retains the color versions. 1 ActiveTrans Priority Tool Overview 1 How the ActiveTrans Priority Tool May Be Used 2 Key Terms 3 Phase I: Scoping 4 Phase II: Prioritization 5 ActiveTrans Priority Tool Phase I: Scoping 5 Step 1: Define Purpose 5 Step 2: Select Factors 9 Step 3: Establish Factor Weights 11 Step 4: Select Variables 20 Step 5: Assess Data 32 Step 6: Assess Technical Resources 38 Phase I: Conclusion 39 ActiveTrans Priority Tool Phase II: Prioritization 39 Step 7: Set Up Prioritization Tool 40 Step 8: Measure and Input Data 41 Step 9: Scale Variables 47 Step 10: Create Ranked List 51 Conclusion 52 Appendix A Programmed Spreadsheet User Guide 52 Introduction 52 Step 1: Define Purpose 55 Step 2: Select Factors 55 Step 3: Establish Factor Weights 56 Step 4: Select Variables 58 Step 5: Assess Data 58 Step 6: Assess Technical Resources 59 Step 7: Set Up Prioritization Tool 59 Step 8: Measure and Input Data 60 Step 9: Scale Variables 67 Step 10: Create Ranked List 70 Appendix B Guidance for Utilizing GIS with the ActiveTrans Priority Tool 77 Appendix C Existing Condition and Demand Variable References 83 Appendix D Guidebook References and Resources C O N T E N T S