TRANSPORTATION IMPACT STUDIES--ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION MODES

Many cities and organizations have developed detailed analysis procedures and significance criteria for traffic impact studies prepared in association with new developments. With few exceptions, what these guidelines and practices have in common is that they ignore alternative transportation modes. University campuses present unique and exciting transportation problems because of the number of modes that need to be accommodated and the scale of the uses. Campus transportation planning includes traffic circulation and parking, pedestrian movements to and within the campus, transit services and linkages, bicycle transportation to and within the campus, and bicycle parking. This paper assesses the use of campus planning applications for other development projects. Specifically, it proposes that analysis of alternative transportation modes be prepared for all transportation impact studies, sets development size thresholds at which detailed analysis is warranted, and presents general recommendations on the types of alternative transportation mode analysis that should be conducted for non-automobile modes. In some cases, jurisdictions may wish to adopt the general methodologies identified in this paper, but incorporate local factors, such as more specific local mode split data. For this reason, the specific methodology of deriving development size thresholds for studying alternative transportation modes is described.