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March
2005 |
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Gala, Conference Weekend Highlights Indiana's 'Gotta Roll With the Changes' Bikes and Peds: On the Map, but Uncounted |
Bikes and Peds: On the Map, but Uncounted Keith Knapp, Madison, Wisconsin-based educator of transportation professionals, touched on a major theme of the 84th Annual Transportation Research Board Conference in Washington, D.C., when in the midst of the "Complete Streets" session he described the current, creeping, ideological shift with the potential to ensure a better quality of life for the future of our neighborhoods. Rather than falling back on the old, outdated and entrenched thinking so prevalent among engineers, planners and policy-makers regarding "vehicular mobility" in our neighborhoods, some have been forced to abandon these notions in favor of new methods that actually work, like complete and healthy streets for all users: pedestrians, bicyclists, transit-users and motorists alike. So first, the good news: bicycles, pedestrians, transit and healthy streets are on the map and the right people are listening. These days, few would attempt to make a case that our roads and neighborhoods are becoming more livable for everyone. Indeed, the TRB Conference focused a fair share of attention on the negative realities of car dependence, poorly built environments and our public health crisis. Thankfully, since 1991 a small degree of funding has been shuttled toward some facilities and plans that have slowly transformed the vision toward "healthy streets,'" "Complete Streets," "Context Sensitive Design" and access for all. And at TRB, such notions certainly presented themselves, if you looked hard enough. Yet, given these small successes, there is still much cause for concern. Most of these reasons revolve around glaring gaps in data regarding the numbers of people who walk and bicycle. Timothy Neumann of the engineering consulting firm CH2M HILL discussed the lack of any kind of meaningful crash and exposure data having to do with cyclists and pedestrians. And why does this matter? In order to deliver the message to our governmental officials and engineers that our roads need to improve, there must be some sort of guidance for the scientists and the mathematicians. In Neumann's words: "If pedestrian safety isn't quantified, it's going to be underweighted" when it comes to the design of our roads.
Kevin Krizek, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, echoed these concerns, citing a complete lack of meaningful data from nationwide travel surveys and census data in terms of walking and bicycling. Without this data, we have no quantifiable way to demonstrate whether pedestrian or bicycle safety is getting worse or getting better, what kinds of design characteristics will draw more walkers and bikers, and to what effect education programs are having on the roads. In addition, metropolitan planning organizations can do little to include pedestrians and cyclists into their travel forecasts and models if there exists no adequate way to assess how many people are doing it. And if there's no way to model what's happening, it's more difficult to make the right arguments that certain types of facilities should be funded and built.
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