HCQS Ped-Bike Sub-Committee January 21, :00 6:15pm

Transcription

1 HCQS Ped-Bike Sub-Committee January 21, :00 6:15pm Attendees Name Affiliation Member? Peyton McLeod Sprinkle Consulting Yes Jamie Parks Kittelson & Associates Yes Bob Bryson City of Milwaukee Yes Martin Guttenplan CDM Smith Yes Paul Ryus Kittelson & Associates Yes Bastian Schroeder NC State University Yes Bhuvanesh Singh Daar Engineering Yes Doug McLeod Florida DOT No Mark Vandehey Kittelson & Associates No John Ringert Kittelson & Associates No Ray Benekohal University of Illinois No Randy Johnson PTV No Scott Washburn University of Florida No John Karachepone Jacobs No Elena Prassas NYU Polytechnic No Mike Dixon University of Idaho No Marcus Januario Mead & Hunt No Barbara Ostrom AMEC E&I No Ilona Kastenhofer Virginia DOT/VCTIR No Marc Butorac Kittelson & Associates No Absent Members Name Anthony Butzek William Davis Joe Fazio Chris Fees Aimee Flannery Fred Hall John LaPlante Theo Petritsch Affiliation Portland Metro The Citadel South Dakota School of Mines MRI-Global George Mason University University of Calgary T.Y. Lin International Sprinkle Consulting

2 Meeting Minutes 1. Opening Session Peyton McLeod started the meeting by introducing himself as the chair of the subcommittee. Attendees introduced themselves, and a sign-in sheet was circulated. Peyton also encouraged interested attendees to sign-up as sub-committee friends. Peyton provided a brief overview of the agenda for the meeting. 2. HCM 2010 Interpretations Peyton led a discussion of the request for interpretations received during 2011 related to the pedestrian and/or bicycle methodologies in the HCM Peyton noted that there have been fewer requests for interpretation that initially anticipated. However, as the methodologies are more fully incorporated into software in the next year, we may expect more requests in During the discussion of HCM 2010 interpretation, Bastian Schroeder asked for clarification about the various options available to the Sub-Committee for dealing with requests, and whether these required an official motion. Peyton noted that he will provide the results of the meeting and any recommendations to the relevant sub-committees in charge of particular chapters. In general, there are three ways to deal with comments: Errata Interpretation Discussion board There were a total of four requests for interpretation received: Truck Percentage (Chapter 15) The bicycle LOS model was developed with heavy vehicle range of 0 to 2 percent. The requester asked if it was ok to apply the model on roads with higher heavy vehicle percentages. There was a general consensus that there is no issue with application at higher heavy vehicle percentages, as the model performs consistently and reasonably under these conditions. Low Volume Adjustment Factor (Chapter 15) The bicycle LOS model has a built-in factor for low-volume roads to reflect the ease of motorists passing cyclists. As currently written in the HCM 2010, it is unclear whether (1) this adjustment factor applies to multi-lane roadways (or just 2-lane roadways) and (2) whether it refers to total directional volume or per lane volume. Attendees noted that multi-lane roadways are very unlikely to have low enough volumes to trigger this threshold. However, the adjustment factor is applicable for multi-lane roadways, and refers to lane volume (this is consistent with other components of the bicycle LOS procedures, which also use lane volume). The subcommittee consensus is that the proposed solution (changing the variable name from directional hourly volume to directional hourly volume per lane ) is appropriate. Intersection Methodology (Chapter 18) The pedestrian and bicycle LOS procedures currently calculate LOS for individual crosswalks (pedestrian) and approaches (bicycle). There is no procedure for calculating an intersection LOS for either pedestrians or bicycles. However, the

3 HCM text refers in several places to intersection LOS for pedestrians and bicycles. The requester asked if there was a method to calculate intersection LOS. After discussion, two key points were decided. First, there is no desire on the part of the subcommittee at that this time to aggregate LOS for individual crosswalks/approaches into an intersection LOS for pedestrians or bicycles. This reflects the expectation that analysts consider each crosswalk/approach individually. Second, the wording in the 2010 HCM should be clarified to better reflect the procedures, and should not refer to intersection LOS. The following terminology was determined: intersection crosswalk LOS for pedestrians and intersection approach LOS for bicycles. Bicycle Segment LOS (Chapter 17) It is nearly impossible using the 2010 HCM procedures for urban street segments to achieve a bike LOS A or B. This is due to the constant in the linear regression equation. This issue was raised by a commenter. Peyton noted that this issue has generated a lot of discussion within the sub-committee already, with the result that a Joint Task Force has already been established to review the issues and potential methodological changes. As a result, Peyton asked that discussion on this topic be held until he provided an update on the Joint Task Force. 3. Update on Joint Task Force with Urban Streets Sub-Committee Peyton provided background on the Task Force and an update on activities: The Task Force formed at the 2010 mid-year meeting to address the lack of results in the LOS A- B range of the spectrum. This is considered a problem by many users and implementing agencies, particularly for road diets, as the result don t sufficiently differentiate between alternatives to assist in evaluation and decision-making. Link LOS improves for road diets, but segment LOS doesn t really because of the constant in the linear regression equation. Noted that HCM allows for use of the link LOS. At roughly the same time, Florida DOT started a project to look at whether FDOT QOS Handbook should adopt the 2010 HCM or maintain previous methods. Because the research was overlapping, it made sense to wait for the Florida results before continuing the Task Force. The Florida work looked into developing entirely new models, but did not achieve good results. However, the work does recommend a new link-level model for Florida with revised coefficients. These coefficients were developed by eliminating the reliance on mean user scores, as mean scores tended to rate almost every facility either LOS C or D. Another possibility would be to use the alternative bike LOS model provided by NCHRP 3-70, which produces the full range of results through a lower constant, albeit with a less accurate statistical fit. Peyton led a detailed discussion of these issues and potential direction for the sub-committee. Bastian Schroeder noted that in reviewing the NCHRP 3-70 research, it is important to look at it in the context of the research. A random crowd of participants will not have many cyclists, meaning that most people won t rate something at LOS A. If LOS A rating are desired, a different process of developing the model is needed. Jamie Parks suggested that an ordered logit model would be a more appropriate formulation for accounting for user preferences, particularly as we are placing user preferences into one of six

4 ordered categories (LOS A-F). A logit model would also account for user variation by giving the probability that a given person would rate a facility in a particular way. Bastian Schroeder - With bicyclists, it is necessary to look at LOS from the perspective of different user types. It is not realistic to have a single score represent everyone s preferences. Bob Bryson The City of Milwaukee use MMLOS to test multimodal alternatives for a corridor, and was not able to appreciably change bike LOS regardless of the treatment under consideration. If bike LOS doesn t change between alternatives, then it isn t a valuable decisionmaking tool. This is a serious problem for agencies that wish to use the methodology. Bhuvanesh Singh noted that the model is not very sensitive to changes in inputs, and was also not sure how validation occurred. Bastian Schroeder with respect to Bob s point, there is a difference between a model that doesn t predict LOS A/B, and one that is not sensitive to changes at all. Any model needs to be sensitive to changes to be useful. Doug McLeod noted that the AAHSTO Standing Committee on Planning (SCOP) has some extra money this fiscal year. Florida FDOT has approached them about dedicated research funding to addressing this issue, and SCOP is interested. If funded, this research task should be complete by September. Martin Guttenplan suggested that the link-level model in the HCM 2010 does a better job at addressing these issues, and works pretty well for facility analysis. Bob Bryson indicated that he would really prefer to use the segment model, as it takes access management and intersections into consideration, but that the current segment model is not viable. Mark Vandehey also suggested that research consider the appropriate weight for intersection LOS, as intersection LOS can wash-out changes that occur at a segment level. 4. Other feedback on HCM 2010 Barbara Ostrom noted that nearly all users interact with the HCM via software, so the Sub-Committee should not expect a lot of questions until software gives users a result they don t like. Bob Bryson reminded the attendees that the release date for HCS Urban Streets software is imminent. Martin Guttenplan indicated that several states on using bicycle LOS to produce statewide bicycle suitability maps using the two-lane/multi-lane methodology. 5. Research Needs & Status Peyton noted that the Sub-Committee has been asked to prioritize two research needs to the Research Sub-Committee. The Research Sub-Committee wants a full committee vote at the mid-year meeting, and need research lists from sub-committees for that process. In general, Group 4 also needs more research statements. This work needs to be completed by the March/April time-frame. The current RNSs associated with the Sub-Committee are: QOS for Various Users of Shared-Use Paths Pedestrian and Bicycle Delay and Calibration

5 Martin Guttenplan suggested that a more timely topic would be a methodology to evaluate separated bike facilities for bike LOS. 6. Opportunities for Coordination Peyton is developing presentations on pedestrian and bicycle material for the 2012 mid-year meeting. This should include a presentation from MRI-Global on Chapter 18 methodologies at the mid-year meeting. Jamie Parks volunteered to develop a presentation on pedestrians at TWSC intersections for the midyear meeting if desired. Bob Bryson noted that the current pedestrian queuing at corners is from 1985 HCM, and now that it is in the signalized intersection chapter it has a lot of potentially problematic assumptions. It s really a highlevel sketch-planning method, and only works with fixed time signals. It would be good to examine this methodology in more detail. Martin Guttenplan agreed that the pedestrian queuing methodology has always been a challenge. 7. Additional Agenda Items (as needed) There were no additional agenda items for discussion.