Current Articles
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Current Articles>
Roadway Network for Qunli New District
in Harbin, China
In 2008 Nelson\Nygaard, on a team with the Guangzhou Municipal Technology
Development Corp. and the Institute for Transportation and Development
Policy under contract to the City of Harbin (China) refined the
design of the basic roadway network for the new district of Qunli.
This new district will have a total land area of 27 square kilometers
with an expected population of 320,000. Previous consultants had
proposed superblocks averaging 800 meters square and 40-70 meter
wide roadways with 10 motor vehicle lanes and limited pedestrians
or non-motorized vehicle facilities.
Our team took the basic network and:
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Reviewed the existing traffic analysis
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Established design concepts intersections,
crosswalks, bus stops, and BRT stations
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Established cross-sections for all major
roadways
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Designed the three major boulevards
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Sketched the BRT system
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Sketched the internal street network (inside
the super-blocks)
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Reviewed the parking analysis and sketched
a parking management system
This work built on a report entitled Sustainable Urban Transport
- Harbin written by the team for the Asia Development Bank in
2007.
Coordinated Public Transit Human Services Transportation
Plans
by Connie Soper
In August 2005, President Bush signed into law the Safe, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, commonly referred
to as SAFETEA-LU. This legislation authorized the provision of $286.4
billion in guaranteed funding for federal surface transportation
programs over six years through Fiscal year 2009, including $52.6
billion for federal transit programs.
Starting in Fiscal Year 2007, projects funded through three programs
included in SAFETEA-LU, including the Job Access and Reverse Commute
Program (JARC, Section 5316), New Freedom (Section 5317) and the
Formula Program for Elderly Individuals and Individuals with Disabilities
(Section 5310) are required to be derived from a locally developed,
coordinated public transit and human services transportation plan.
SAFETEA-LU guidance issued by the Federal Transportation Administration
(FTA) in May 2007 indicates that the plan should be a “unified,
comprehensive strategy for public transportation service delivery
that identifies the transportation needs of individuals with disabilities,
older adults, and individuals with limited income, laying out strategies
for meeting these needs, and prioritizing services.”
Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates has been working with numerous
public agencies and their local stakeholders throughout the Pacific
Northwest, California, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and
elsewhere around the country to fulfill these new planning requirements.
full article>
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Streets for Living: Planning Tools and Best
Practices in Street Design
Living streets are streets designed to be shared safely by pedestrians,
bicycles and low speed motor vehicles. This handbook aims to help
communities understand the features, benefits and possible pitfalls
of implementing living streets in their neighborhood. The handbook
outlines lessons learned from case studies in the US and Europe,
as well as state-of-the-art features to enhance the health and ecological
sustainability of streets. The handbook was developed for the City
of Santa Monica and the Borderline Neighborhood by Nelson\Nygaard,
Sherwood Design Engineers and Blackbird Architects / Van Atta Associates.
download
report (2 MB pdf)>
Easter Seals Project ACTION Toolkit
by Richard Weiner
Nelson\Nygaard was commissioned by Easter Seals Project ACTION to
produce a toolkit to measure the accessibility and safety of bus
stops in a variety of settings--urban, suburban, and rural--and
provide information on best practices and pertinent regulations.
full article
and download report >
Car-Sharing: Where and How it Succeeds
by Adam Millard-Ball
Car-sharing is a service that provides members with access to a
fleet of vehicles on an hourly basis. Members reserve a car online
or by phone, walk to the nearest lot, open the doors with an electronic
key card, and drive off.
full article >
Crediting Low-Traffic Developments
by Adam Millard-Ball
Traffic studies are at the heart of many fundamental decisions on
land use, street design and urban form. By analyzing the number
of trips expected from a new development, and the consequent impact
on traffic congestion at neighboring intersections, the traffic
study is a driving force behind roadway widths, street and intersection
design, and the level of fees that a developer must pay to upgrade
the transportation infrastructure.
full article >
Presentations >>
Designing Complete Streets
by Michael King
Complete Streets seems to be a mantra these days, with every
progressive policy calling for the inclusion of all modes
in all corridors. But what does it really mean at the ground
level – at the speed of feet? This presentation looks at
simple yet effective techniques to improve the walking experience
in cities and beyond. It looks at maps, sidewalks, crossings
(not just crosswalks), signals, safety, and speed. In the
design of complete streets all of these play a part, yet
to the vulnerable road user – aka pedestrian – the impacts
are magnified.
download
presentation >
Less Traffic, Better Places: A Step-By-Step Guide to Reforming
Parking Requirements
by Patrick Seigman
Presented at the San Diego Parking Symposium, July 14, 2006
Just after World War II, most cities and towns in America
tried the radical experiment of adopting minimum parking requirements
(regulations that specify the minimum number of parking spaces
that must be built for each land use), in the hopes that this
new government intervention would alleviate traffic congestion.
After 50 years of testing this theory, a growing number of
communities have concluded that the experiment has failed.
Traffic congestion is not only worse, but projected to worsen.
Simultaneously, many cities and towns are finding that the
parking requirements in their zoning codes have become a stumbling
block, stymieing progress towards their goals for economic
development, more affordable housing, traffic reduction and
the creation of beautiful public spaces. This presentation
provides a step-by-step guide to the reform of parking requirements.
It draws on both international examples and, closer to home,
examples from Nelson\Nygaard's work throughout the United
States to help communities implement parking policies that
actually meet their larger goals for economic development,
environmental sustainability and quality of life.
download
presentation > TOD Planning for Smaller
Urban Communities: Who Said T = Trains?
by David Fields
If transit is more than just trains, why does Transit Oriented
Development require a train station? David Fields offered
a different view to the Virginia Transit Association, providing
examples of effective TOD communities planned around bus service.
The key is to provide a mix of land uses, dense development,
a walkable community, and sufficient transit focused on the
community. Maybe it’s time to rename TOD to MULTI…Mixed Use
with Lots of Transportation Initiatives.
download
presentation >
Street Typologies & Transport
Performance Measures in Seattle
by Jeffrey Tumlin
As part of our ongoing transportation planning work in Seattle,
Nelson\Nygaard has proposed revising the way the city measures
the success of its transportation network. Specifically, we
have suggested that they shift from vehicle capacity and vehicle
delay measures toward person capacity and person delay. Rather
than focusing on Auto Level of Service, moreover, we have
also suggested that the city adopt a set of Quality of Service
indicators for all modes of transportation. For each street
in the city, we have drafted minimum, desired and preferred
Quality of Service targets for each mode, based upon how important
the given street is for each mode, and the urban context through
which the street runs. Finally, we have developed a quantitative
"balancing tool" the help city staff determine the extent
to which one mode should be inconvenienced in order to improve
another mode. This presentation is a summary of various detailed
technical memoranda.
download
presentation >
Reforming Parking Requirements
by Jeffrey Tumlin
Parking is the poor relation of architecture and design. Unglamorous
and often downright ugly, it tends to be treated as a necessary
evil. If the parking system works well, nobody notices. If
it doesn't, it can work against a city's best efforts to improve
urban design, manage traffic and achieve a wide array of other
goals. This presentation summarizes some of Nelson\Nygaard's
work in developing sound parking policies for a variety of
cities, as well as case studies of cities that have gotten
parking right.
download
presentation >
Optimizing Parking at Transit
Stations
by Jeffrey Tumlin
At the 2006 ITE Annual Meeting, Nelson|Nygaard was asked to
critique BART and WMATA's efforts to reduce replacement parking
for new joint development projects. According to recent research,
replacement parking can rarely be justified from a ridership
and revenue standpoint. If they want to increase ridership
and revenue, transit agencies should simply focus on joint
development and allow an elimination of commuter parking at
most urban rail stations.
download
presentation >
Reports >>
Safe Routes to Transit - Bus
Rapid Transit Planning Guide
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