Identifying and managing infrastructure corridor access for economic development, safety, and land use decision making

Abstract

The performance, cost effectiveness, and safety of trillions of dollars of transportation corridors are both enhanced and threatened by adjacent land uses. These corridors are critical to manufacturing, communications, energy, and the movement of people and goods. State transportation agencies, including the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) are responsible for mobility and access on thousands of miles of multimodal corridors. This paper demonstrates methods to automate the collection of access data and prioritize vulnerable sections of the corridors, using sections of the Virginia Statewide Mobility System. The corridor trace analysis methodology described in this paper compares the placement and density of access points to safety metrics, road size, location of traffic management features, and area demographics for hypothesis testing and correlation studies. The results of this study can be used to prioritize the allocation of funding by VDOT, as well as other agencies and regions to minimize risk of land use. The methods can be applied at multiple geographic scales and planning horizons.