A variety of technical workshops and educational tours were available on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 23. These two-hour sessions were included with registration, and they are scheduled so that attendees may attend up to two.
Workshop & Tour Descriptions
Following are the summaries of the workshops and tours provided during USS5.
| Num | Name | Speakers | Description: | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WT01 | Does Your Road Need an Alternative Diet? | Mark Doctor, FHWA | Four-lane undivided highways experience relatively high crash frequencies–especially between high-speed through traffic, left-turning vehicles and other road users. One option for addressing this safety concern is a Road Diet, which typically involves converting an existing four-lane undivided roadway segment to a three-lane segment consisting of two through lanes and a center two-way left-turn lane. Studies indicate a 19 to 47 percent reduction in overall crashes when a Road Diet is installed. For pedestrians, Road Diets result in fewer lanes to cross and provide an opportunity to install refuge islands. Road Diets can make shared spaces more livable and contribute to a community-focused, “Complete Streets” environment. On-street parking and bike lanes can also bring increased foot traffic to business districts. This workshop will focus on assessing the evaluative factors for considering the feasibility of a road diet using an actual case study example. | Classroom |
| WT02 | Highway Capacity Manual – Alternative Intersections | Bastian Schroeder, Kittelson & Associates | Alternative intersection and interchange configurations are becoming increasingly popular and common in the U.S. and are a clear focus in FHWA’s “Every Day Counts” initiative. Of the various intersection and interchange forms, four configurations were included in recent federal research to develop Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) methodologies: The Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI), The Restricted Crossing U-Turn (RCUT), The Median U-Turn (MUT), and the Displaced Left-Turn Intersections (DLT). These intersection and interchange forms are increasingly deployed across the U.S. and are associated with significant increases in roadway capacity, as well as safety benefits. This workshop presents an overview of the new alternative intersections and interchange methods in the 6th Edition HCM. The HCM methods provide transportation analysts with the critical ability to quickly evaluate DDIs, RCUTs, MUTs, and DLTs in an early design or planning-level context, to screen these alternative designs against more conventional alternatives. | Classroom |
| WT03 | Have Access Management Questions, We Have Your Answers – Access Management Manual (AMM) 2nd Edition & Access Management Application Guide (AMAG) | Karen Dixon, Texas A&M Transportation Institute and Kristine Williams, CUTR | TRB’s recent release of the Access Management Manual (AMM), 2nd Edition and Access Management Application Guide (AMAG) provides practitioners with a complete depository of access management research and tools including NCHRP research completed since the publication of the AMM, 1st Edition in 2003. | Classroom |
| WT04 | Speed Dating through Bicycle Project Design | Bryan Poole, City of Durham and Daniel Amstutz, City of Greensboro | The speakers will provide an overview of the bicycle plans for the cities of Durham and Greensboro, focusing on the design challenges for both in-road bicycle accommodations and separated bicycle facilities. Workshop participants will work in small groups to identify design considerations for sample planned projects. This Workshop would be well-paired with the Bike Tour. | Classroom |
| WT05 | How the Chicken Crosses the Road: Utilizing the NCDOT Pedestrian Crossing Assessment | Sarah O’Brien, NCSU ITRE | This session will teach planners, engineers and other transportation professionals how to use North Carolina’s Pedestrian Crossing Guidance. Determining which crossing locations warrant the installation of additional treatments is complex, but the guide allows for a systematic approach to guide future installations of pedestrian treatments that is consistent and repeatable. | Classroom |
| WT06 | Every Day Counts for Safety: STEP into DDSA | Lauren Blackburn, VHB | Through the FHWA Every Day Counts program, several safety initiatives have been promoted. This session will focus on the overlap between the two EDC-4 initiatives: using Data Driven Safety Analysis to deliver Safe Transportation for Every Pedestrian | Classroom |
| WT07 | Experiences with North Carolina Alternative Intersections | Jim Dunlop, NCDOT and Joe Hummer, NCDOT | Technical presentations to discuss the planning, design, and implementation of multiple innovative intersections and interchanges across North Carolina. | Classroom |
| WT08 | Urban Road Safety – Identifying and implementing safety strategies for pedestrian and bicycle crashes | Daniel Carter, Highway Safety Research Center and Libby Thomas, Highway Safety Research Center, and Krista Nordback, Highway Safety Research Center | Come join the discussion as we look at the challenges faced by local agencies who seek to identify and address the locations in their cities that are most in need of pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements. Participants will help compile a list of challenges, such as lack of traffic volume data or imprecise crash locations, then discuss potential solutions. | Classroom |
| WT09 | Complete Streets | Mike Rutkowski, Stantec | Join a representative from the National Complete Streets Coalition in an interactive session that will explore the lessons learned when applying Complete Streets Design Standards to a few case studies. This presentation will expound on some of the innovative designs, tradeoffs considered and unique measures of success used for Complete Street retrofit projects. The presenter will use Push Button technology with the audience to gain meaningful interaction. Three case study applications from NC, SC and FL with varying levels of multimodal needs will be explored and discussed. This presentation will highlight the decision points and tradeoffs that were considered for each corridor. What worked and what didn’t? Was the application of complete streets accomplished through prescribed design guidelines or something entirely different? In the end, did we create a “Great Street”? | Classroom |
| WT10 | Designs that work for older adults and for people who are blind or who have low vision | Janet Barlow, Accessible Design for the Blind and Carole Lovitt, North Carolina Division of Services for the Blind | Accessibility for pedestrians is much more than creating safe and attractive places to walk. The risk of low vision and blindness increases significantly with age, particularly in those over age 65 (2004 National Eye Institute study). While taking a walk near the conference center, workshop participants will look at features of the sidewalk, street crossings, transit stops and transit stations that may be barriers to travel by individuals who are blind or who have low vision, and at the features that allow safe and accessible travel. Learn to incorporate design features to meet the needs of everyone in the community by increasing your knowledge of what an accessible pathway looks like for older adults and people who are blind or who have low vision. | Classroom and outdoor |
| WT11 | Downtown Raleigh Complete Street Tour | Stacie Phillips, Kimley Horn and Dhanya Sandeep or Carter Pettibone, City of Raleigh Urban Design Center | Explore Fayetteville Street and the rest of Raleigh’s street grid to see the efforts and projects that have transformed the Downtown to a thriving city center. The tour will highlight bike and pedestrian improvements (projects and policies) as well as important developments and redevelopments that have brought life back to Downtown and put Raleigh on every Best Places list in the past few years. | Outdoor |
| WT12 | Hillsborough Street Revitalization Tour | Todd Delk, Stewart and Sharon Smith, NC Department of Health and Human Services | In the 90s, Hillsborough Street had declined from NC State University’s front door to a four-lane speedway between Downtown and the I-440 Beltline. Learn about the genesis and implementation of a 20+ year corridor improvement project that transformed the street from a four-lane thoroughfare with vacant businesses to a thriving pedestrian-oriented complete streets rich with activity, development, and (yes) roundabouts. The tour will also include an Orientation and Mobility Specialist with the Division of Services for the Blind for the NC Department of Health and Human Services who will provide comments on both the helpful and problematic features of the revitalization for visually impaired pedestrians. | Bus + outdoor |
| WT13 | Holly Springs NC 55 Superstreet Tour | Christa Greene, Stantec and Mike Lindgren, Stantec | This tour will visit the nearby Town of Holly Springs which was recently voted one of the 2016 Best Small Cities in America. Specifically, we will travel to the NC 55 corridor which has seen a tremendous amount of retail and residential growth over the past few years. Three superstreet intersections were constructed as part of the Holly Spring Towne Center development and an adjacent intersection was recently modified to an alternative intersection design to improve flow along the corridor. Representatives on this tour will discuss the process from inception to implementation and share some lessons learned through the process. | Bus + outdoor |
| WT14 | Art to Heart Greenway Bike Ride | Trung Vo, City of Raleigh | Experience a sampling of Raleigh’s downtown neighborhoods, parks, and college campuses on two wheels. This bike tour will include stops to discuss the current status and future development of Raleigh’s bicycle network, and the 10-mile route will take riders along low-stress streets, bike lanes, and shared use paths. | Bike ride |
| WT15 | Protected Intersection | Joe Gilpin and Mike Repsch, Alta Planning + Design | The protected intersection design, with corner safety islands, emerged in the Netherlands and other northern European countries as an approach to define traffic movements at the intersection of two separated bike lanes. The authors of the white paper on the “Evolution of the Protected Intersection” have been on the forefront of this movement in the United States and their insights will be included in this workshop. Today, there are 12 protected intersections in the United States, all built since 2014. They are found in Austin, Salt Lake City, Davis, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Berkeley, and College Station. The designers of the Salt Lake City protected intersection will lead participants through a workshop that discusses the history, elements, geometric design, and signal operations of the protected intersection. Participants will have the opportunity to hear lessons learned and the appropriate applications of protected intersections. | Classroom |