Transcript Slide 1

Transportation Performance
Measures
Presentation to Pasadena City Council
Ellen Greenberg, AICP
August 2, 2010
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Transportation Performance Measures
• Tell how the system is functioning or how it is
expected to function in the future
• Evaluate how well the system meets community
objectives
• Help with decision-making and implementation
2
How Can Transportation Performance
Measures Be Used?
• Informing the community
• Assessing progress, and monitoring progress
• Analyzing options
• Anchoring funding and mitigation requirements
• Guiding operating decisions and strategies
• Synching up with other goals
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A Backdrop of Evolving Values
• Green City / Sustainable Community
• Complete Streets
• U.N. Urban Accords
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Community Objectives and Expectations
The 2004 Mobility
Element objectives
are a starting point
for the 2010
Mobility Element
Update
• Promote a Livable
Community
• Encourage Non-auto
Travel
• Protect
Neighborhoods
• Manage Multi-modal
Corridors
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What has changed?
What other objectives might be considered?
2004 Mobility Element Objectives
• Promote a Livable Community
• Encourage Non-auto Travel
• Protect Neighborhoods
• Manage Multi-modal Corridors
• Manage Corridors to reflect 2010 street classifications
• Support Green City and Sustainability Aims
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Meaningful Performance Measures
Clearly connect to:
• Community objectives and expectations
• Data and analysis that are available and understandable
• Options that are realistically available to the City
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Evaluating the Set of Realistically
Available Options
Decreasing Emphasis On:
• Additional capacity
• Reducing individual
intersection delay
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Increasing Emphasis On:
• Network management
• Travel time reliability
• Improved transit services
• Complete Streets
• Multifunctional rights of
way: green streets, social
spaces
• Managing multimodal
system
What’s right with the present system?
• Familiar
• Responds to many people’s “hot button” issues
• Established basis for funding and mitigation
• Reflects typical practice vis a vis measurement
• Synchs up with other agencies
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A new set of performance measures could
• Retain some current measures
• Emphasize quality of travel experience by all modes
• Elevate safety, livability and sustainability
• Reflect interactions between land use, community character
and transportation system
• Take advantage of new techniques, tools and concepts
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In good company…
• San Francisco
• Santa Monica
• SANDAG
• Caltrans
• And more…
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San Francisco Transportation Authority
Planning to eliminate intersection LOS
• Adopt auto trip generation as the sole impact measure
and assess a traffic mitigation impact fee based on trips
• Fee supports TDM strategies and non-auto improvements
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Santa Monica: Sustainable City Plan
System Level Indicators
Target
Mode Split
Upward trend in use of
sustainable modes
(transit, bike, walk, rail)
AVR of 1.5
Average vehicle ridership
(AVR) of businesses with
>50 employees
Ownership of qualified low
emission / alternative fuel
vehicles
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Upward trend
Santa Monica: Sustainable City Plan
Annual ridership
Traffic congestion
Number of signalized intersections with
unacceptable vehicle congestion (LOS
D, E, F)
Level of service for sustainable modes
(transit, bike/ped) at impacted
intersections
Safety – Number of bicycle and pedestrian
collisions involving motor vehicles
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Upward
trend
Downward
trend
Downward
trend
Downward
trend
SANDAG
Regional Transportation Performance Measures
• Mobility
• Accessibility
• Reliability
• Efficiency
• Livability
• Environmental Sustainability
• Equity
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Caltrans: Smart Mobility Framework
• Location Efficiency
• Reliable Mobility
• Health and Safety
• Environmental Stewardship
• Social Equity
• Robust Economy
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What can a revised set of Performance
Measures accomplish?
• Devise and evaluate a strategies for the General Plan update
• Link up with Green City Action Plan
• Inform regional strategies
• Convey technical information
• Align new developments with City goals
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A Short List for the General Plan
• Sustainability
• Accessibility
• Livability
• Driver Experience
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A short list for the General Plan
Sustainability
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Sustainability
“4-legged stool” for reducing transportation’s climate and
environmental impacts
• Fuel mix
• Vehicle technology
• Vehicle use
• Operating conditions
“3E” approach is more comprehensive
• Environment
• Economy
• Equity
•
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Sustainability:
Possible Performance Measures
• Vehicle Miles Traveled
• Mode Share
• Housing + Transportation Cost index
• Variability in livability factors experienced by different groups
in Pasadena
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Vehicle-Miles Traveled in California
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Quiz Time
• Match up the daily VMT with each Community
Daily VMT?
San Francisco – North Beach
New York City
Sacramento
Pasadena
Choices: 39
23
52 17 6
Mode Share for Journey-to-work
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Pasadena Vehicle-Miles Traveled per Capita
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A short list for the General Plan
Livability
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What is Livability?
• Quality of Life and Opportunities
• Availability of opportunities for all residents, workers and
visitors
• Health and safety
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Best practices: PEQI and BEQI
San Francisco’s Healthy Development Measurement Tool
(HDMT)
• Considers health needs in urban land use plans
• HDMT includes transportation-related metrics
• Pedestrian Environmental Quality Index (PEQI)
• Bicycle Environmental Quality Index (BEQI)
• Evaluates design characteristics, volumes, and safety
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BEQI: Bicycle Environmental Quality Index
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PEQI: Pedestrian Environmental Quality Index
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A short list for the General Plan
Accessibility
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Accessibility versus Mobility
• Accessibility = the ability to reach desired goods or services
• Mobility = physical movement; how you get from “A to B”
• Enhancing mobility is a purely transportation related exercise
• Road widening → better auto mobility (and better LOS)
• New bike lanes → better bike mobility
• New bus route → better transit mobility
• Often involves trade-offs between modes
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Accessibility and Mobility
• Often, better mobility = better accessibility
But not always
• Many cities with high levels of congestion and poor vehicle
mobility are very successful because of excellent accessibility
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Accessibility Should be the Focus
• Enhancing accessibility involves transportation AND land use
• Clustering shops and housing around a transit stop → better
accessibility
• Re-routing transit to better serve popular destinations →
better accessibility
• Walk Score® measures accessibility based on the proximity of
walkable destinations to a specific location
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Walk Score for Pasadena City Hall
92 = Walker’s Paradise!
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Walk Score for Neighborhoods
• WalkScore has been extended from a single location to a
neighborhood, but not yet for Pasadena
• A possible tool to customize for General Plan application
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A New Accessibility Measure Could be
• Relevant to all trip types to all destinations within the City
• Used to help people understand why different parts of
Pasadena “work” differently
• Easily communicated and intuitive – like Walk Score
• Used to identifying and solving deficiencies
• Supportive of Sustainability goals
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Accessibility and Sustainability: Joined Up
• Greater accessibility through land use planning and
coordination of transportation leads to…
• Fewer auto trips
• Reduced per capital vehicle-miles traveled
• Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Lower household transportation costs
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A short list for the General Plan
Driver Experience
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Performance Measures: Driver Experience
• Recognize dominant mode: reflect people’s experiences
• Move attention away from individual intersections and more
towards corridors
• Identify operating conditions, improvements and traffic
calming measures consistent with each corridor’s character
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Driver Experience Performance Measure
• Possible measures:
• Driver travel time
• Average travel speed
• Reliability of travel time
• Safety (collisions)
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Driver Experience Performance Measure
• Collect travel time data along critical corridors
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Driver Experience Performance Measure
• Collect travel speed data along critical corridors
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Driver Experience Performance Measure
• Model critical corridors with traffic simulation tools
• Identify mode appropriate improvements
• Optimize traffic signal timings along traffic corridors
• Test “road diets”, changes to parking configuration, etc.
44
Driver Experience Performance Measure
• Analyze traffic collisions to develop safety indices by corridor
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A Short List for the General Plan
• Sustainability
• Accessibility
• Driver Experience
• Livability
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Performance Measures and Development
Review
• General Plan Update performance measures may not be
exactly the same as performance measures used in
development review and impact fee requirements. However,
they must be consistent.
• If new CEQA thresholds of significance are prepared they
must be adopted by ordinance, resolution, rule, or regulation,
and developed through a public review process and be
supported by substantial evidence.
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Next Steps
• Work with TAC and GPUAC to refine performance measures
• Apply performance measures to create and evaluate Land
Use and Mobility Element Alternatives
• Bring recommended performance measures and CEQA
thresholds to City Council for adoption
• Incorporate adopted measures into General Plan EIR and
Transportation Impact Guidelines
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