Assessing Complete Street Strategies Using Microscopic Traffic Simulation Models

Abstract:

Authors of this research developed a traffic simulation model for the downtown San Jose network and evaluated five different street redesign and travel demand combinations. This model aids understanding of network-wide effects of changes in street design for local and regional agencies who are interested in implementing complete streets and/or one-way to two-way conversion. The base network may be altered to model and evaluate other complete streets (e.g., road diet) and tactical urbanism (e.g., farmer’s market on city streets on certain days of the week) scenarios. The 3-dimensional animated videos for each scenario are also created to be used for public outreach by the city to engage the stakeholders in the planning and implementation process. Quantitative measures used for evaluating the scenarios include travel times on key corridors and network-wide delays during the afternoon peak hour. The evaluation shows the current city street network will be able to sustain a modest (between 5% and 10%) increase in single-occupancy automobile travel demand. The network will be overwhelmed if the single-occupancy automobile travel demand were to increase to the level projected per the city’s 2040 general plan. This outcome points to the need for strong Travel Demand Management (TDM) measures.

Publications:

Assessing Complete Street Strategies Using Microscopic Traffic Simulation Models (Full Report)

Research Brief

Authors:

BERNICE LIU

Bernice Liu is a Master’s degree candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She has a certified engineer- in-training (EIT) and has interned with W-Trans (June 2017–September 2017) and WSP Global, Inc. (September 2018–December 2018).

ALIREZA SHAMS, PhD

Dr. Alireza Shams is a Lecturer in the Civil Environmental Engineering department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He received his PhD from Clemson University in 2018. His research interests include Civil Integrated Management (CIM), Application of new sensing technologies in Transportation, Transportation Safety, and Geographic Information System (GIS).

JONATHAN HOWARD

Jonathan Howard is a Master’s degree candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He received in BS degree from Cal Poly and is working full-time with Caltrans District 5.

SERENA ALEXANDER, PhD

Serena Alexander is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at San José State University. Her primary research interests are in the areas of environmental planning, climate action, land-use and transportation planning, community economic development, and sustainable urban design. Before joining the SJSU faculty, Dr. Alexander conducted community economic development and environmental policy research at the Center for Economic Development and the Great Lakes Environmental Finance Center at Cleveland State University, where she also received her doctorate in Urban Studies. She holds master’s degrees in Urban and Regional Planning from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and Architecture from Azad University of Tehran.

ALEX HUGHES

Alex Hughes is a Master of Urban and Regional Planning student at San Jose State University with research interests in policy and transportation. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of California Riverside with a dual emphasis in Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology. Currently, he works for the City of San Jose as a Planner I in the Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement Department.

ANURAG PANDE, PhD

Anurag Pande, PhD, is Professor of Civil Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He also serves as the Faculty Liaison for Service-Learning and as such manages Cal Poly’s outreach efforts to local and regional government and non-profit agencies.

Published:

June 2020

Keywords:

Multimodal transportation

Traffic simulation

Complete streets

Calibration

Validation