CEE 417

Question 1

Costs for crashes and congestion includes

Answer 1

Property damage
Lost earnings
Lost household production

Medical costs
Emergency service
Travel delay
Administrative costs
Legal costs
Pain and lost quality of life

Question 2

Costs for crashes and congestion in dollar

Answer 2

300bn

100bn

Question 3

Policy implications due to crashes > congestion

Answer 3

Make safety a national priority

Increase investment in proven safety countermeasures

Ensure implementation and evaluation of state highway safety plans

Pass good laws and enforce them

Make vision zero a national goal

Question 4

Differences between travel demand forecasts and actual ridership
Rail

Answer 4

Inaccurate rail:
~Log(cost)
Higher costs-> higher inaccuracy
Usually overestimated 160%
Half of project 40% difference

Question 5

Differences between travel demand forecasts and actual ridership
Road

Answer 5

Inaccuracy depends on number of vehicle

Small projects underestimate

Question 6

3 reasons for travel demand forecast errors

Answer 6

Uncertainty about trip distribution
- realistic forecast vs idealistic policies

Uncertainty about trip generation
- old data

Uncertainty in land use development
- land use implemented vs planned

Question 7

How to handle congestion

Answer 7

Charge peak hour tolls
- Bad Equity

Greatly expand road capacity
- bad physically and economically

Greatly expand public transport capacity

• very costly
• capacity x4 = -9% cars

Live with congestion
- just wait until it’s free again!

Question 8

What is triple convergence

Answer 8

Heavily congested road gets expanded:

• other driver come back to peak hours
• commuters go back to car
• other drivers change route back

Heavily congested again

Question 9

3 distributional frameworks for evaluating costs and benefits

Answer 9

Equity

Ability to pay

Maximum belt

Question 10

Complete street concept

Answer 10

Transportation policy and design approach to

• plan
• design
• operate
• maintain

Enabling
- Safe
- Convenient
- comfortable 
Travel and access all age all mode

Question 11

Local streets alternative

Answer 11

Traffic calming

• Street alignment changed
• barriers
• reduce traffic speed

For safety
Livability
Other public purposes

Question 12

Local street implementation challenges

Answer 12

Impact on cycling

Emergency vehicles

Impact on volume

Traffic safety:
More walking/cycling…

Question 13

Arterial alternative

Answer 13

Road diets

Reducing number of lanes
Width of lanes
Works with existing right of way

Reduction in vehicle speed
-34% crashes
\+23% walking
\+30% cycling
\+~35% on street parking

Volume remains similar

Question 14

Arterial implementation challenges

Answer 14

Emergency

Added congestion

Road rage

Badly planned
- busses/mail trucks cause more congestion

Turning lanes busy

Less parking

Question 15

Compete street implementation challenges

Answer 15

Incorporating diverse land uses is difficult

Priorities of a wide mix of users is complex

Increasing walkability is difficult to achieve

Keep traffic flowing can be issue