October Active Transportation Safety Webinar Roundup

October 4, 2019

Graphic icon of computer screen with a bicycle front and center.

October is National Walk Month! 

 Stay up to date with the latest road safety trends and best practices in planning and designing safe spaces for walking, biking, scooting, and rolling by attending upcoming webinars happening in October 2019! Have a webinar you'd like us to share? Please submit webinar details here.

Friday, October 4, 2019 

Transforming the Urban 'Burb: Transportation Innovations in Vancouver, Washington

Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) 
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM | Register(link is external)

From Complete Streets policy implementation to stronger community engagement, bus rapid transit expansion to waterfront redevelopment--and so much more!--Vancouver, Washington, is on the move. Directly across the river from Portland, Oregon, the City of Vancouver serves as the southern gateway to Washington State; the City encompasses over 50 square miles, and, with a population of nearly 185,000, Vancouver is the fourth largest city in Washington (behind Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and just ahead of Bellevue). 

As Vancouver embarks on an update to the 15-year-old Transportation System Plan, learn about how the City is striving to transform the existing transportation system through more collaborative programs and more efficient measures. Smaller and suburban cities face unique challenges in growing metropolitan areas with economic and demographic shits--and these communities must balance multiple, sometimes differing, expectations that the transportation system will provide everyone with excellent level of service. In the changing landscape of ever-improving mobility options, advancing technology, and evolving best-practices, find out how Vancouver is working to ensure that the transportation system operates safely, efficiently, and innovatively as possible. 

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 

Contextual Guidance at Protected Bicycle Lances

Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) 
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM | Register(link is external)

Separated bike lanes have become increasingly common around the United States as cities seek to attract the new riders, including people who want to ride but limit their riding because they do not feel comfortable riding with motor vehicle traffic. Planners and engineers are working to identify contextually appropriate, safe, and comfortable designs for intersection locations, where bicyclist paths cross the paths of turning vehicles as well as cross-traffic. This research employed a combination of user surveys and simulations to anticipate expected bicyclist and turning vehicle interactions and bicyclist comfort based on design type and volumes. Findings examine which types of intersection designs, ranging from protected intersection and bike signals to mixing zones, are most comfortable for a range of cyclists, while taking into account expected motor vehicle traffic. This project will provide valuable information to cities as they seek to include comfort-based factors into design selection criteria – an endeavor that may be essential to attracting the coveted Interested but Concerned riders.

Key Learning Outcomes

  • Understand the design selection options for separated bike lanes at intersections.
  • Understand the research team’s approach to assessing the anticipated comfort of current cyclists and non-cyclists, were they to ride through a variety of intersection types, with and without interactions with motorists.
  • Understand the options and choices available to cities in selecting intersection treatments.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Regional Planning and Health: How MPOs Are Using Regional Transportation Planning to Advance Health

Safe Routes Partnership 
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Register(link is external) 

Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are some of the most influential agencies that most people have never heard of. In this free webinar, the first of two on MPOs and health, we will provide an overview of MPO long-range regional transportation planning and how MPOs can include health in these processes. Transportation and health are deeply connected and our regional agencies can’t make wise decisions about how to invest transportation resources without considering and addressing the health pros and cons of different options. We’ll also hear from staff at two MPOs that have brought health into their long-range planning processes. We’ll learn why these MPOs became interested and invested in health and health equity, how they overcame resistance, what happened differently because of these considerations, and how including health changed outcomes.

Speakers:

  • Grace Cho, Senior Transportation Planner, Metro (Portland, OR)
  • Wade Reynolds, Senior Planner, Plan Hillsborough (FL)
  • Michele Ogilvie, Executive Planner, Plan Hillsborough (FL)
  • Sara Zimmerman, Program and Policy Director, Safe Routes Partnership

The Walkable Campus 

America Walks 
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Register(link is external) 

College and university campuses are often described as microcosms of society, with many of the attributes of a small town or city – housing, restaurants, markets, and entertainment. And, like their larger counterparts, they often have similar issues concerning walking and active transportation and provide valuable lessons in larger-scale applications. Join us as we explore examples of how universities and colleges are promoting walkability and movability in their communities. This webinar is intended for those just starting out on the walking path as well as those interested in learning more about the topic.

Attendees of this webinar will be able to:

  • Give examples of programs and policies being implemented on campuses.
  • Describe outreach and promotion strategies used by colleges and universities.
  • Discuss different ways colleges and universities are addressing walkability and mobility on their campuses and ways walking advocates should be engaging with topics related to this work.

Friday, October 11, 2019

The Safe Systems Approach: Considerations for Developing a Multi-Layered System

Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) 
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM | Register

While the overarching objective of the transportation system is to provide mobility, it should be developed and operated under the framework of a safe system with the aspirational goal to establish a system on which no road user can be severely or fatally injured. To accomplish such a safe system, it is necessary to effectively harness all the core protective opportunities provided by the system. This includes the street design and operations, user behavior, vehicle design, protection systems, and EMS. The common thread across these layers is speed. This is directly driven by the quadratic relationship between velocity and kinetic energy, and the necessity to provide safe and structured dispersion of kinetic energy at the onset of a safety-critical event. The presentation will describe ongoing research that examines what happens when we no longer design each of the individual safety components to provide a desirable level of protection for a certain circumstance, but that it can contribute to a larger joint entity (i.e., the system) and can exhibit the required level of safety.

Speaker:

  • Offer Grembek, Co-Director, UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) 

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

If We Build It, Will They Come? Estimating Demand for Biking and Walking

Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals 
October 16, 2019 | 12:00 PM- 1:00 PM | Register(link is external)

It is an age-old question: How do we make the case for investing in bicycling and walking without solid evidence that the results will pay off? This webinar will explore traditional methods, as well as emerging practices for estimating demand and benefits of bicycling and walking.

Friday, October 24, 2019

The Nature of Trail Aesthetics

American Trails 
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM | Register(link is external)

This richly illustrated webinar introduces a small yet important portion of trailshaping. Trailshaping is a system of understanding in which simple, everyday forces shape (generate) the big picture, details, and nuances of all trails and all trail types, as well as context-specific trail planning, design, construction, maintenance, and management. The forces integrate nature, physics, logic, and emotion within themselves, and so everything shaped by the forces also integrates nature, physics, logic, and emotion throughout the whole. Among other things, trailshaping structures and explains how well-seasoned trail experts determine what to do in any given context, i.e., how to read and use the context itself to optimize the trail within that context.

Of the specific forces that shape each part of each trail, four of them potently shape trail aesthetics. These forces enable us to generate and explain trails with aesthetics based on the nature of trails themselves combined with the nature of any particular context. Through many examples, we’ll see how the forces interact to form trail aesthetics for better and for worse, and how these forces shape—and are shaped by—context-specific trail planning, design, construction, maintenance, and management.

Learning Objectives:

  • Recognize and understand the forces that most potently shape the look and feel (“aesthetics”) of all trails and all trail types.
  • Gain a sense of how these forces shape and are shaped by trail planning, design, construction, maintenance, and management. The sense gained is a more refined and self-structuring version of the personal system of understanding that well-seasoned trail experts develop through long experience.
  • Learn how and why less formal (more naturalistic) trail design and construction can produce results that are better, smarter, faster, and cheaper in the long run.