Highway Expansion Research Articles

Using Google’s Aggregated and Anonymized Trip Data to Support Freeway Corridor Management Planning in San Francisco, California

With rising urban freeway congestion and limited funds available for highway expansion, it may be essential to manage traffic growth by using high-occupancy toll lanes and other travel demand management (TDM) measures. To prepare for and help guide freeway corridor management planning in the US-101 and I-280 corridors in San Francisco, California, information describing trip origins and destinations by time of day was desired. Observed roadway facility-specific origin–destination (O-D) flows can help researchers to understand spatial distribution of demand and impute willingness to pay, actions that are useful in evaluating various TDM strategies. This paper describes a new passively collected O-D data source—Google’s aggregated and anonymized trip (AAT) data—obtained under Google’s Better Cities program. Aggregate hourly flow matrices for 85 districts covering California’s nine-county Bay Area specific to four freeway segments in San Francisco were obtained. Because AAT data account for only a sample of travelers, Google provides relative flows rather than absolute counts. Linear regression models were estimated to relate relative flows in the AAT data set and observed traffic volumes from the California Department of Transportation’s Performance Measurement System. The models were applied to convert relative flows to trips and derive facility-specific, time-dependent O-D matrices. Comparison of these facility-specific O-D matrices to select link O-D matrices from a regional travel demand model show that there is a higher correlation in terms of productions at origin districts and attractions at destination districts than at the O-D flow level. Some opportunities and limitations of the new data source are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.

Optimization of transport network in the Basin of Yangtze River with minimization of environmental emission and transport/investment costs

The capacity of the ship-lock at the Three Gorges Dam has become bottleneck of waterway transport and caused serious congestion. In this article, a continual network design model is established to solve the problem with minimizing the transport cost and environmental emission as well as infrastructure construction cost. In this bi-level model, the upper model gives the schemes of ship-lock expansion or construction of pass-dam highway. The lower model assigns the containers in the multi-mode network and calculates the transport cost, environmental emission, and construction investment. The solution algorithm to the model is proposed. In the numerical study, scenario analyses are done to evaluate the schemes and determine the optimal one in the context of different traffic demands. The result shows that expanding the ship-lock is better than constructing pass-dam highway.

CREATING LIVABLE INFRASTRUCTURE: THE CONNECTOAKLAND VISION TO RECONNECT NEIGHBORHOODS AND CONNECT CITIES THROUGH FREEWAY REMOVAL

INTRODUCTION Throughout the second half of the 20th Century, our nation's cities were marred by the onslaught of unsustainable suburbanization and the expansion of limited access highways that ripped through urban centers and divided communities within them. Paired with systematic disinvestment from redlining and white flight, these forces combined to create lasting physical, social and economic hardships in cities across the US. Over the last 20 years, cities have rebounded in America and new patterns of thought focused on livability, walkability and urban form have started to sprout: from the Big-Dig in Boston to Octavia Boulevard and the Embarcadero in San Francisco, cities are reassessing the value of highways that solely move automobiles through cities, and have started to focus on how these pieces of infrastructure impact the daily lives and economic interests of a their residents and visitors. In Oakland, California, through the efforts of ConnectOAKLAND, the city is taking up the mantle of this new pattern of thought and is beginning the planning process to reconnect West Oakland to Downtown by transforming an underutilized freeway (I-980) into a multi-modal transportation corridor that reestablishes the historic urban grid. The project's dual benefit will reconnect two of Oakland's historic neighborhoods while better connecting Oakland along with the entire East Bay to San Francisco, San Jose and Silicon Valley through the incorporation of a second transbay tunnel for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), commuter rail (Caltrain), and high speed rail (HSR). This article will explore the ConnectOAKLAND vision for I-980 as a case study for current and future patterns of highway removal, and as a part of the national movement to rethink the role of urban highways and holistically re-envision the US transportation infrastructure.

The Downs–Thomson paradox with imperfect mode substitutes and alternative transit administration regimes

The Downs–Thomson paradox (D–T paradox) occurs when expansion of a congested and untolled highway undermines scale economies of a competing transit service, leaving users of both modes worse off. The standard analysis of the D–T paradox is based on several stringent assumptions: fixed total travel demand, perfect substitutability between automobile and transit trips, and no transit crowding. This paper re-examines the paradox when these assumptions are relaxed while retaining the usual assumption that there is no congestion interaction between the modes. It also broadens consideration to alternative transit administration regimes. In the standard treatment the transit operator is obliged to cover its costs. In this paper we also study two other regimes: transit profit maximization, and system-wide welfare maximization with no financing constraint. We examine how the transit system operator responds to highway capacity expansion in each regime, and how this affects welfare for drivers and transit users. We show that in all regimes the full price of transit declines only if the full price of driving falls as well. Thus, drivers are more likely to benefit from highway expansion than transit riders. The D–T paradox cannot occur in the profit maximization or unconstrained welfare maximization regimes. In the traditional self-financing regime transit service deteriorates, but the D–T paradox is not inevitable. Numerical analysis suggests that it can occur only when automobile and transit trips are nearly perfect substitutes.

Road safety and traffic medicine in Iran: Achievements and challenges

Road traffic injuries found to be the second rank of Years of Life Lost (YLL) and third rank of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) in Iran based on Global Burden of Disease 2010. The number of annual fatalities, which had been on the rise for several decades, reached to the maximum number of over 27500 deaths in 2005. The number decreased to 23000 in 2010 and less than 18000 in 2013. The reduction in number of deaths happened despite a four-fold increase in number of motor vehicles. Some of the interventions that might be contributing to this achievement include the following: a) the new traffic law passed in 2010 that replaced the previous one dating back to 1968. Heavier penalties for major offences like: speeding, driving under the influence and dangerous driving are considered in the new law; b) stricter law enforcement by traffic polices(1); c) mass media campaign for traffic injury prevention (1); d) using fixed speed camera systems and laser speed guns; e) universal coverage of hospital treatment costs for all traffic injuries by Ministry of Health and Medical Education(2); and f) graduated driving license. On the other side, there are areas that need to be improved, including: a) driving behavior of both public and private drivers; b) driving under influence of drugs specially among public vehicle drivers (3,4) c) motorcycle riding behavior with special emphasis on helmet use (5); d) medical and psychological fitness to drive examinations; e) vehicle safety specifically for cars manufactured within the country; f) transportation engineering with emphasis on expansion of railroads and safe highways.

Study of the rock foundation stability of the Aizhai suspension bridge over a deep canyon area in China

Suspension bridges have good spanning ability and seismic resistance. They avoid the need for tall piers and reduce the amount of foundation excavation. Therefore, suspension bridges are the first choice when building large-span bridges. Recent expansion of highways in the high mountainous region of western China has led to the widespread construction of large-span suspension bridges. Mountainous areas with deep canyons feature complex topographic and geological conditions, such as constricted construction sites, extensive unloading of rock masses and problematic stability of high and steep slopes, that adversely affect foundation stability and complicate surveys and analyses. In this paper, the Aizhai suspension bridge was used as a case study, and four key issues related to bridge foundation stability were analyzed. The results suggest that a comprehensive geological investigation is needed to develop a full understanding of the geological conditions, particularly unloading and dissolution-related geologic defects, in rock masses. The stability problem in the bridge foundation rock masses occurs primarily in the high and steep slopes on both banks of the canyon. The design load did not cause significant deformation in the rock mass. If proper reinforcement measures are taken to ensure the stability of the slope rock mass, the foundation rock mass will be stable. In addition, no significant interaction was observed between the structures. A tunnel-type anchorage can resist strong pullout forces via the “clamping effect” provided by the surrounding rock. Because tunnel-type anchorages are rarely used, the rock mechanics of the surrounding rocks have not been fully studied. Therefore, the pullout capacity of these anchorages may have been seriously underestimated.

The politics of collective public participation in transportation decision-making

Citizen involvement in transportation planning is typically modeled on a liberal democracy in which individuals express their preferences about a project. In this paper we present an analysis based on interviews with stakeholders whose involvement was grounded in a complementary model of public participation, one in which an organized community used collective action (instead of only individual expression), and worked both within and outside of the formal public involvement process to influence the design of an arterial highway in their neighborhood. This case reflects a commonplace context for public participation: residents opposing a highway expansion and the negative effects of heavy traffic in neighborhoods. The problem presented in this case is that the process for citizen involvement was not designed to fully utilize the community’s collective capacity. Three aspects of collective action—representation, the ability to shape a policy agenda, and methods of engagement—were contested in the public participation process. We argue that these conflicts around collective action in the public participation process exposed its “one-way communication,” and enabled a different kind of political process in which neighbors’ organizing was powerful and influenced decisions.

Mitigating reptile road mortality: fence failures compromise ecopassage effectiveness.

Roadways pose serious threats to animal populations. The installation of roadway mitigation measures is becoming increasingly common, yet studies that rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of these conservation tools remain rare. A highway expansion project in Ontario, Canada included exclusion fencing and ecopassages as mitigation measures designed to offset detrimental effects to one of the most imperial groups of vertebrates, reptiles. Taking a multispecies approach, we used a Before-After-Control-Impact study design to compare reptile abundance on the highway before and after mitigation at an Impact site and a Control site from 1 May to 31 August in 2012 and 2013. During this time, radio telemetry, wildlife cameras, and an automated PIT-tag reading system were used to monitor reptile movements and use of ecopassages. Additionally, a willingness to utilize experiment was conducted to quantify turtle behavioral responses to ecopassages. We found no difference in abundance of turtles on the road between the un-mitigated and mitigated highways, and an increase in the percentage of both snakes and turtles detected dead on the road post-mitigation, suggesting that the fencing was not effective. Although ecopassages were used by reptiles, the number of crossings through ecopassages was lower than road-surface crossings. Furthermore, turtle willingness to use ecopassages was lower than that reported in previous arena studies, suggesting that effectiveness of ecopassages may be compromised when alternative crossing options are available (e.g., through holes in exclusion structures). Our rigorous evaluation of reptile roadway mitigation demonstrated that when exclusion structures fail, the effectiveness of population connectivity structures is compromised. Our project emphasizes the need to design mitigation measures with the biology and behavior of the target species in mind, to implement mitigation designs in a rigorous fashion, and quantitatively evaluate road mitigation to ensure allow for adaptive management and optimization of these increasingly important conservation tools.

Genetic population structure of Peninsular bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) indicates substantial gene flow across US–Mexico border

Within the United States (US), Peninsular bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni, PBS) are listed as federally endangered. Despite known metapopulation structure, little is known regarding functional connectivity across the international border with Mexico. Increasing threats to connectivity associated with highway expansion, renewable energy development, and completion of the US–Mexico border fence, led us to conduct a study of genetic variation and spatial structure. Blood and fecal samples were collected (n=224) on both sides of the border from 1992 to 2013. Genetic data was obtained for 25 microsatellite loci and 515 base pairs of the mitochondrial DNA control region. Microsatellite diversity (observed heterozygosity=0.56; allelic richness=4.1; inbreeding coefficient=0.01) was substantial despite past demographic declines. STRUCTURE analysis indicated the presence of three genetic populations, one of which spanned the international border. This pattern of genetic structure was supported by analysis of molecular variance for both microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA (P<0.01), and low-moderate pairwise fixation indices (FST=0.09–0.15; ΦST=0.18–0.27) indicated substantial gene flow among populations. Migrant detection tests indicated natal dispersal occurred within both sexes, with no evidence of sex bias. Despite the severe reductions in population abundance which led to federal listing in the US, these data suggest PBS have retained substantial genetic variation and show little evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck. Patterns of genetic spatial structure indicate gene flow throughout the ranges is common, and construction of a US–Mexico border fence or wind energy infrastructure would disrupt connectivity of the metapopulation. Future conservation efforts should focus on identifying dispersal corridors and maintaining functional connectivity to facilitate recolonization of unoccupied habitat.

The Downs–Thomson Paradox with responsive transit service

Downs (1962) and Thomson (1977) suggested that highway capacity expansion may produce counterproductive effects on the two-mode (auto and transit) transport system (Downs–Thomson Paradox). This paper investigates the occurrence of this paradox when transit authority can have different economic objectives (profit-maximizing or breakeven) and operating schemes (frequency, fare, or both frequency and fare). For various combinations of economic objectives and operating schemes, the interaction between highway expansion and transit service is explored, as well as its impact on travelers’ mode choices and travel utilities. Further, for each combination, the conditions for occurrence of the Downs–Thomson Paradox are established. We show that the paradox never occurs when transit authority is profit-maximizing, but it is inevitable when the transit authority is running to maximize travelers’ utility while maintaining breakeven. This is because the former transit authority tends to enhance transit service (e.g., raise frequency or reduce fare) when facing an expanded highway; and on the contrary, the latter tends to compromise transit service (e.g., reduce frequency or raise fare). Both analytical and numerical examples are provided to verify the theoretical results.

Evaluation of Fly ash Treated Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement for Base/Subbase Applications

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) is a term given to removed and/or milled pavement materials containing asphalt and aggregates. This material is obtained from recycling the existing flexible pavements which have reached the end of their design life or shown excessive cracking. The use of RAP has grown widely reducing the use of virgin material thus helps to conserve the natural resources. It also reduces the amount of construction debris reaching the landfills. RAP can be used in construction of base/subbase of a new pavement which results in huge savings. A 100 % RAP cannot be used directly in base/subbase layers because of its inferior properties such as unconfined compressive strength (UCS), California bearing ratio (CBR) and resilient modulus (Mr). This is because RAP material has a very low or limited bonding as the particles are coated with aged bitumen. These properties can be improved by using RAP in combination with virgin aggregates (VA) and/or calcium based additives such as lime, cement or fly ash. Calcium rich fly ash and a fraction of VA have been used in the present study to evaluate the strength in terms of UCS and stiffness in terms of Mr of RAP to promote as a pavement base/subbase material. The RAP material was collected from an ongoing national highway (NH) expansion project in India. Class “C” fly ash was collected from Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC), Tamil Nadu for stabilization studies. Specimens were prepared with 100 % RAP, 80 % RAP + 20 % VA and stabilized with 10, 20, 30 and 40 % dosages of fly ash by weight. In this study, emphasis is given to the mixing methodologies adopted to amend base materials and stabilizer. Traditionally, addition method is preferred for stabilization studies and replacement is preferred for mixture of two materials by weight of the principal material. Two methodologies were compared in terms of results obtained from the Mr and UCS studies and a balanced method was suggested. To know the level of interaction of fly ash with the bitumen coated aged aggregate, X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) studies were also performed. It was observed that the balanced addition method of mixing the stabilizer by weight of principal material would be more beneficial in terms of the strength and stiffness of the mixes. The new design mix consisting of 80:20 proportion of RAP and VA stabilized with 40 % fly ash by weight of the total mix, has met the design specifications laid down by Indian roads congress (IRC) for a base/subbase material of low volume roads.

Before the Creative Class

During the summer of 1964, the Haight Theater in San Francisco operated briefly as “gay movie house” that screened B-movies, held drag shows, and hosted male physique contests. For Haight-Ashbury neighborhood activists, already engaged in a fight to block a planned freeway and reverse the attrition of white families from the community, the reopened theater presented an existential threat to the family-oriented character of the neighborhood. They saw the growing visibility of gay men in the area as a harbinger of social disintegration that could, if allowed to continue, result in the classification of the area as blighted, making it a candidate for demolition and renewal. The moral anxieties of Haight residents are best understood not simply as the manifestation of an inherent, latent homophobia but as part of the broader struggle of neighborhood activists to stave off the destructive impacts of urban renewal and freeway expansion. The episode reveals the degree to which taken-for-granted assumptions about the social and economic impacts of gay men on urban space have changed as postwar planning discourses about blight and social disorganization have been eclipsed by more contemporary narratives of gay-led urban revitalization and the productivity of creative capital.

Research on Speed Limit of Highway Expansion Project Construction Zone

The reasonable speed limit would reduce the detrimental impact on the driving safety and traffic jam in Highway expansion project high slope work zone. The study based on the investigation of Liu Nan highway’s traffic capacity, speed, traffic flow and other related index, which researched the vehicles queuing length of the different lane width in expansion project construction zone. The result is that 1/2 lane occupied need limit speed step by step in the warning area, 1/3 lane occupied limit 60km/h and 1/4 lane occupied limit 80km/h.

Changes in air quality at near-roadway schools after a major freeway expansion in Las Vegas, Nevada

Near-roadway ambient black carbon (BC) and carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations were measured at two schools adjacent to a freeway and at an urban background school 2 km from the freeway to determine the change in concentrations attributable to vehicle emissions after the three-lane expansion of U.S. Highway 95 (US 95) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Between summer 2007 and summer 2008, average weekday small-vehicle volume increased by 40% ± 2% (standard error). Average weekday large-vehicle volume decreased by 17% ± 5%, due to a downturn in the economy and an associated decline in goods movement. Average vehicle speed increased from 58 to 69 mph, a 16% ± 1% increase. The authors compared BC and CO concentrations in summer 2007 with those in summer 2008 to understand what effect the expansion of the freeway may have had on ambient concentrations: BC and CO were measured 17 m north of the freeway sound wall, CO was measured 20 m south of the sound wall, and BC was measured at an urban background site 2 km south of the freeway. Between summer 2007 and summer 2008, median BC decreased at the near-road site by 40% ± 2% and also decreased at the urban background site by 24% ± 4%, suggesting that much of the change was due to decreases in emissions throughout Las Vegas, rather than only on US 95. CO concentrations decreased by 14% ± 2% and 10% ± 3% at the two near-road sites. The decrease in BC concentrations after the expansion is likely due to the decrease in medium- and heavy-duty-vehicle traffic resulting from the economic recession. The decrease in CO concentrations may be a result of improved traffic flow, despite the increase in light-duty-vehicle traffic.ImplicationsMonitoring of BC and CO at near-road locations in Las Vegas demonstrated the impacts of changes in traffic volume and vehicle speed on near-road concentrations. However, urban-scale declines in concentrations were larger than near-road changes due to the impacts of the economic recession that occurred contemporaneously with the freeway expansion.

Numerical Simulation of Slope Excavation in Highway Renovation and Expansion Project

Slope stability analysis requires detect and control the stress and strain timely. Familiar with the slope‘s stress and strain changes in excavation process has important guiding significance for the actual construction. In this paper, choose a slope in Guangxi freeway renovation and expansion process as the research object. Use FLAC3D to analysis the stress and displacement simulation results of this slope excavation step by step. Summarize the excavation regular pattern.

Development through paper deals: space and politics of value in peri-urban India

The article looks at contestations over space in peri-urban India. It studies the acrimonious responses in defense of a local marketplace that occupied public land against the sovereign project of highway expansion in peri-urban West Bengal. It posits an opposition between two aspects of state governance—rational–legal and magical—that shape the contentions. In the rational–legal mode, the expansion of the highways represents the official development goals of progress. The magical aspects of the state engender the circulation of officially approved illegal chits that give occupying migrant villagers’ claim to the space around the highway. The ethnography looks at the affective economy of illegal chits that political parties and local bureaucracies use to bring migrating villagers within their ambit. It explores how illegal chits embody the state’s legible presence in the villagers’ everyday lives, their kinnetworks, communities and transform individual affective orientations toward space. In these new modes of simultaneous “space” and “place” making, public land is understood less as commons, but more as a stretch that could be divided among individuals and households aspiring to be “developed” or upwardly mobile by excluding others. The essay contends that emergence of the “right to the city” as a collective right requires a double-edged critique. A simple celebration of the subversive potential of the magical aspect of the state vis-a-vis its rational–legal mode may not be helpful for a politics of value that seeks to challenge the idea of value (or what makes life worth living) embedded in the wider neoliberal development discourse.

Learning from a Contested Project in the Netherlands

The Amelisweerd case, a highly debated highway network expansion project from the late 1970s, has been widely portrayed as a symbolic mismatch between government and entrenched stakeholder opposition. The aim of this article is to learn from the case by unraveling the policy process using a multiactor policy analysis model. The result is that the policy process scores poorly on all the three applied criteria, and this has had a discernible negative effect on the level of stakeholder support for the policy proposals. Since then, major changes have taken place in the planning processes of infrastructural projects in the Netherlands. However, the potential for learning from Amelisweerd is much wider, as since the 1960s public projects are increasingly subject to public scrutiny and comment. Careful analysis from iconic cases like Amelisweerd can help current infrastructural policymakers and planning project managers as they develop fresh policies and projects.

Historic Archeological Investigations at Roberts Cemetery Near Troy, Bell County, Texas

A preliminary archeological investigation was conducted in 2008 at Roberts Cemetery near Troy, Texas, as part of the Texas Department of Transportation’s planned expansion of Interstate Highway 35. Mechanical trenching discovered one unmarked grave near the highway right of way, and this led to an extensive mechanical search of the eastern edge of the cemetery in 2012. Following the removal of the southbound access road and thick layer of artificial fill, five additional unmarked graves were discovered. Of the six unmarked graves, two are located in the cemetery property and were left in place, but the four burials inside the highway right of way were exhumed. They were reinterred in a nearby plot in Roberts Cemetery.

Integrated Planning of Tourism Investment and Transportation Network Design

The development of a viable and sustainable tourism industry requires wise strategic planning of investments in tourism sites and the supporting transportation infrastructure. In view of the interactive relationship between transportation and the tourism industry, this paper proposes an integrated modeling framework to address tourism planning and transportation network design simultaneously. A bilevel optimization model was proposed to decide the optimal locations for tourism investment and highway capacity expansion. The upper-level problem minimized the total system cost while the lower-level model determined user equilibrium flow of tourist and nontourist road users under traffic congestion. A customized solution approach based on relaxation, reformulation, and approximation was developed. The proposed methodology was applied to an empirical case study for Heilongjiang Province, China, to show implications of the optimal strategies for tourism planning.

Use of highway underpasses by bandicoots over a 7-year period that encompassed road widening

Roads may create filters or barriers to animal movement and adversely affect population processes. Underpasses are now commonly installed during highway construction to mitigate barrier effects and link habitat patches. We used sand-tracking to investigate use of six underpasses by bandicoots along a section of the Pacific Highway in northern New South Wales before, during and after road duplication (i.e. expansion from two to four lanes). Trapping revealed that the northern brown bandicoot (Isoodon macrourus) and the long-nosed bandicoot (Perameles nasuta) were equally abundant prior to highway expansion. Five years before highway widening, bandicoots frequently used 18-m-long underpasses (&gt;1 traverses per day). Twelve months before road widening, underpass use by bandicoots declined to ~0.5 traverses per day and continued near this level during construction. This declined to 0.03 traverses per day after duplication with underpasses extended to ≥49 m in length. Few crossings were recorded after expansion of the road corridor, which may indicate a shift from regular foraging traverses before duplication to infrequent dispersal movements after duplication.