Funded in part by the Volvo Research and Education Foundation, this research is part of an international study related to mega-projects in several different European, Asian, and North American countries (coordinated by the Global Centre for Mega Project in Transport and Development in London). The Rudin Center has been asked to develop three case studies from the United States that will eventually be compared to studies from nine other countries, resulting in a total of 30 case studies over the course of five years. The first case study for the U.S. team will be AirTrain JFK. Two other projects being considered are the Alameda Corridor in California and I-15 in Utah. These case studies offer a unique opportunity to participate in a global forum of best practices in the fields of transportation and sustainable development.
Earlier work by the NYU Wagner Rudin Center highlighted the dearth of information related to Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) in large central cities. Urban areas face different issues related to CSS since they must address CSS within the context of large populations and densities, built urban environments, and multiple modes for transportation among other factors. While this initial research identified key issues and provided some examples, it was clear that more work remains to be done in terms of assessing how CSS is used in practice in urban areas. The goal of the present research study, sponsored by the Mineta Transportation Institute, is to provide a more in-depth assessment of how CSS is used in practice in urban areas, touching upon the following points: a) how CSS is incorporated into basic planning, programming, and design; b) what kind of policies have grown out of this process or help guide it; c)how public participation and stakeholder involvement is carried out and measured; d) what kinds of obstacles exist to successfully incorporating CSS in practice; e) what kinds of decisions are finally made in terms of balancing the various needs related to parking, non-motorized traffic, safety and throughput. Recognizing that in California and in many other locations, key arterials are also part of the state highway systems, there will be discussion on the role played by the State and the municipality with an assessment of the types of coordination that are present or needed, and how that affects each of these issues. The resulting report would provide an assessment of these points, along with suggestions on best practices.
A common finding in the many transportation related research projects completed at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management is the need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies, authorities, and governments within the NYMTC region. This has been recognized by the NYMTC Principals, and over the course of the past two years, they have reached consensus on five shared goals which serve as the framework for making decisions on future investments in the region’s transportation network, and reflect broad agreement on the need for regional approaches to complex issues facing the region: a) build the case for obtaining resources to implement regional investments; b) enhance the regional environment; c) improve the regional economy; d) improve the regional quality of life; and e) provide convenient, flexible transportation access within the region. While these shared goals represent an important achievement, they require greater definition and prioritization. Furthermore, the specific mechanisms for fostering coordination and cooperation on each of these shared goals have not yet been identified and clearly linked to each of the goals. The Rudin Center will be undertaking a twelve-month research and inquiry initiative to: a) help the Principal members of NYMTC characterize more clearly each of the five shared goals; b) aid in defining and reaching consensus around objectives to be derived from each of the goals; c) establish a group of measures of success that could be tracked to demonstrate whether the shared goals and objectives are being met and are achieving their desired outcomes; d) identify the key trends – politically, demographically, socio-economically, technologically – that are likely to have an impact on the shared goals and objectives, and the manner in which they are most likely to prove achievable; and e) develop recommendations for integrating the shared goals and objectives into the region’s formal transportation planning process.
A joint effort funded by NYMTC and led by the Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation at Rutgers University, this study will determine the feasibility of developing freight villages in the NYMTC Region. The Rudin Center will be leading the effort related to public outreach, an important element of this study. The public outreach component of the project aims to engage the freight provider community, as well as community leaders, business leaders, and the general public through a series of outreach meetings that will be held around the region. The purpose of these outreach meetings is to: elicit comment and feedback on key aspects of the study and its initial findings; educate and inform the public in general; inform and discuss potential obstacles and solutions with the stakeholder community specifically; provide a reality check for key concepts; and, finally; report back the results of the study. Information gathered through the public outreach process will be incorporated throughout the study and into the final report.
This project is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as the lead academic institution. The objectives of the study are to: a) design and develop a self-sustaining urban freight traffic management system for the New York City Metropolitan area integrating state of the art remote sensing technology, cutting edge freight demand management, traffic simulation, and policy; and b) combine revenue generation power of pricing, with tax deductions to receivers willing to accept off-peak deliveries, and GPS based traffic monitoring, to induce a shift of truck traffic to the off-hours. As part of this effort, institutional and policy challenges and alternatives need to be identified and assessed. The NYU Wagner Rudin Center is leading the public outreach activities by forming Advisory Groups, gathering the information needed to identify and assess the key institutional and policy issues relevant to freight demand management, leading consensus building workshop with stakeholders and describing a set of policies, institutional arrangements, and mechanisms that should be considered.
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) make possible the use of technology and advanced communications to reduce congestion and improve the reliability of the region’s transportation system. While traffic conditions can be improved by adding capacity through building new roads, such an option is often limited due to a combination of the high capital costs involved, lack of sufficient right of way, and community opposition to further roadway expansion. As transportation providers explore alternative travel demand management options like pricing, ITS offers a way to maximize the use of existing capacity through improved efficiencies, and enables users to make informed travel choices. This study, supported by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will document the effectiveness of existing ITS, identify and assess new and/or upgraded systems or components with demonstrated and/or the potential to reduce congestion and enhance network reliability. In addition, the study will provide support information and a framework for ranking future capital investments in ITS systems aimed at reducing, or at least mitigating, congestion at the agency and regional levels.
The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), the sponsor of this project, has identified pedestrian safety and mobility as high priorities and has devoted significant resources to pedestrian safety improvement programs. A variety of safety programs and initiatives have been implemented by NYCDOT over the past fifteen years. Such programs and initiatives appear to have been successful. Despite such improvements in pedestrian safety, pedestrians in New York City are still more vulnerable to motor vehicle-related crashes than those living in other parts of New York State or the United States, because of its unique characteristics in terms of population density, pedestrian volume, and dense urban built environment. Recognizing that a multitude of factors impact pedestrian safety and that these factors may vary not just nationally, but within cities, the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, the Center for Transportation Injury Research at CUBRC and State University of New York-Buffalo, the Rensselaer Polytechnic University, and Baruch College, are conducting a joint study aimed at identifying specific locations and means for further improving pedestrian safety in New York City. The goals of the proposed study are three-fold: (1) to identify priority locations for pedestrian safety engineering treatments; (2) to identify priority treatments by location type; and, (3) and to suggest recommendations based on the 5 E’s of safety – Engineering, Enforcement, Encouragement, Education, and Evaluation.
Funded by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), this study tackles the pedestrian safety issues while specifically addressing the needs and challenges associated with potential high-risk population groups that will be identified in the initial months of the study. Working closed with the current members of National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), as well as several non-NACTO large central cities as appropriate, the goal of the study is to identify the key areas of concern, the potential means for addressing them and the types of policy decisions that would need to be made in order to increase safety for pedestrians in high-risk groups. More specifically, the objectives of this research are to: (1) review related materials on pedestrian safety, with special attention to high-risk populations; (2) collect information about issues, tools, planning methods, and policies for pedestrian safety in large central cities, and to collect available data on pedestrian fatalities and injuries at the city- and facility-level (e.g. school zone and roads) where available; (3) identify high-risk populations and specific safety hazards affecting them through qualitative and quantitative analysis, using the information and data collected in (2); and, (4) suggest tools, recommended practices and performance measures for planning, and policies that would be helpful to improve pedestrian safety for high-risk populations.
While there is agreement on the need for regional approaches to such issues as highway congestion, land use, increased freight traffic, and transportation operations more broadly, effective mechanisms for fostering coordination on such issues are still lacking in many cases. Further, this is a concern that other metropolitan areas also continue to grapple with around the country. When asked about on-street parking policies, for example, representatives from Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC suggested that better collaboration was needed with suburban areas which often fail to realize that policies undertaken in the suburbs can have negative affects on their urban neighbors. The Rudin Center was is engaged in a year-long research initiative that will identify and describe the nature of the obstacles to effective urban-suburban and suburban-suburban coordination in transportation and land use; assess the specific areas related to transportation and land use where such coordination is most urgently needed; benchmark practices in this region with what select metropolitan areas are doing elsewhere around the country to better coordinate efforts in transportation and land use across jurisdictional lines; and identify best practices and specific practical ways that they could be implemented in the NYMTC region. This project is being supported by NYMTC as one of the first planning projects funded by the September 11th Memorial Program.
