Pedestrian Environment Around Schools and Traffic Safety: Social Disparity Issues in Child Pedestrian Crashes in Austin, TX

Pedestrian safety from the motor vehicle traffic crash is one of the major concerns of the transportation planning and public health fields. Especially, school-aged children are more vulnerable to being struck by a motor vehicle than other age groups. Many American cities have devoted time and effort to improve the pedestrian safety, providing a desirable pedestrian environment to their neighborhoods. However, there are some controversies about the unequal distribution of the benefits from a quality pedestrian environment. Thus, we investigated: 1) whether school neighborhoods provide safer pedestrian environments than other neighborhoods in terms of school-aged child pedestrian crashes, and 2) whether there are social disparity issues in the safe pedestrian environments around schools in Austin, TX. Using both bivariate and multivariate analyses, this study also examined differences in contributing factors of child pedestrian crashes across neighborhoods with contrasting socio-demographic characteristics. Results show that child pedestrian crashes occur less frequently near school neighborhoods. However, those school neighborhoods with higher proportions of Hispanic populations and lower-income households showed higher likelihood of crashes than their counterparts. Also, this paper identified that significant contributing factors of child pedestrian injuries varied by neighborhood characteristics. These findings suggest that planners and policy makers should pay more attention to the provision of safe pedestrian environments and the equitable distribution of their benefits to ensure the social justice

South College District Redevelopment Plan, Bryan, TX

The site, South College Corridor District, is located between the boarder of the city of Bryan and College Station where Texas A&M University is placed. South College Corridor has been served as a major throughfare to connect Texas A&M University and Downtown Bryan. In 1910, the City built a trolley system along South College Avenue.Along with the growth of Texas A&M University and its expansion toward Texas Avenue, TX6, and University Avenue, South College Avenue has lost much of its glory as a destination point. The district has been mainly developed for single family housing units, mobile homes, and few restaurants and bars. However, recent private development projects with mixed-use buildings and apartment complexes nearby will change the topography of this area. To provide a big picture and guide future development in this area, students were created redevelopment plans for several parts of the whole community.Texas A&M University, Texas Target Communities, Yunmi Par

Liberty County Strategic Plan 2016 - 2036

In the fall of 2015, the County of Liberty and Texas Target Communities partnered to create a task force to represent the community. The task force was integral to the planning process, contributing the thoughts, desires, and opinions of community members—as well as their enthusiasm about Liberty’s future. This fourteen-month planning process ended in August 2016. The result of this collaboration is the County of Liberty Strategic Plan, which is the official policy guide for the community’s growth over the next twenty years.Liberty Strategic Plan 2036 provides a guide for the future growth of the county. This document was developed by Texas Target Communities in partnership with the County of Liberty

Improving Mobility of People with Disabilities: The Potential of Autonomous Vehicle Transportation Service and the Role of the Built Environment

This dissertation research examines whether autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to become a viable transportation option to improve mobility for people with disabilities. In this study, I focus on two disability types, including physical disabilities (i.e., difficulty in walking or climbing stairs) and visual impairments (i.e., difficulty seeing while wearing glasses or blind). The study areas include Austin and Houston, Texas, USA. This study uses mixed-methods of focus groups and surveys to explore people with disabilities’ mobility issues and their perceptions of the potential of autonomous vehicle transportation (AVT) services that help improve mobility. Through the analyses of focus group and survey data, it was found that the current public transportation services and neighborhood built environments still caused mobility issues for those with disabilities. Furthermore, the results showed that people with disabilities highly expected AVT to resolve their mobility issues despite several concerns regarding the accessibility and safety of AVs. The findings also suggested that people with disabilities’ expectations for AVT might be due to the frustrations that came from mobility issues. Built upon these findings, this study examines the probability of AVT being chosen as a viable transportation option among people with disabilities and what factors influence their choice. To explain both observable factors and unobservable psychological factors, this study employs a hybrid choice model (HCM) using stated preference data collected by the survey. The model results showed that some people with disabilities still worried about the absence of a human assistant when they chose AVT. In addition, the results corroborated that a high preference for AVT among people with disabilities were associated with their negative attitudes toward public transportation services and built environments. That is, the results corroborated the expectations of people with disabilities that AVT would resolve their mobility issues. Nevertheless, since people with disabilities’ mobility issues are complex and intertwined in several ways across different domains, such as transportation systems and built environments, AV technology alone would hardly resolve all. Therefore, even in the era of AVs, to improve people with disabilities’ mobility, it will be important to develop more targeted strategies through the multidisciplinary approach

Presidio County State of the Community Reprort

Located in the Trans-Pecos region and partially in the Chihuahuan Desert, Presidio County was formed from Bexar County in 1850 and was originally the largest county in the US covering some 12,000 square miles. The boundaries were changed in 1883 dividing it into 3 other counties giving way to its current shape, covering 3,856 square miles making it the fourth largest county in Texas (Smith, 2010). The population fluctuated with the coming and going of US Troops supported at two Army bases in the county from World War I to shortly after World War II. The economy is primarily agriculture and tourism. The county has limited transportation infrastructure to cover the vast lands. The total road network of the county consists of 288.6 miles to cover the almost 4,000 square miles.Presidio County, Texas is nestled in far west Texas (Trans-Pecos) next to Big Bend National Park. This county presented a unique challenge due to the limited amount of information available to the general public. Request for information were sent via email to county officials and well as the Mayor of Marfa and Presidio Cities. This report covers the state of the community including the people, economy, housing, land use and environment, and transportation infrastructure. Data was collected from the US Census Bureau, the Texas Real Estate Center, the Texas Almanac and various published articles available on the internet. We address issues and concerns that were discussed via telephone with Ann Dunlap, the Mayor’s wife of Marfa, Texas.Texas Target Communitie

A focus group study on the potential of autonomous vehicles as a viable transportation option: Perspectives from people with disabilities and public transit agencies

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is becoming one of the most promising alternatives to improve mobility for people with disabilities. Nevertheless, how people with disabilities perceive AV as transportation services has not been explored. Also, limited information exists about how public transit agencies comprehend and perceive autonomous vehicle transportation (AVT) services. This study discusses mobility issues for people with disabilities and explores the potential of AVT to serve that population, particularly those with visual impairments or physical disabilities. Researchers conducted six focus groups comprising people with disabilities (N = 23) and public transit service experts (N = 10) in Austin, Texas and Houston, Texas. Each session was audio-recorded and analyzed using conventional content analysis. This study identified people with disabilities’ mobility issues related to: (1) current transit services (including fixed-route and paratransit services) and (2) the quality of neighborhood built environments. Both people with disabilities and transit experts expected that AVT could mitigate current mobility issues, especially in improved built environments. However, participants with disabilities also expressed concerns and anxieties regarding AVT. Transit experts agreed that more targeted strategies would be needed to overcome possible barriers to AVT for people with disabilities. This study provides insights on shaping AVT strategies and policies relevant to improving mobility for people with disabilities

Data_Sheet_1_Novel hybrid visual stimuli incorporating periodic motions into conventional flickering or pattern-reversal visual stimuli for steady-state visual evoked potential-based brain-computer interfaces.pdf

In this study, we proposed a new type of hybrid visual stimuli for steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which incorporate various periodic motions into conventional flickering stimuli (FS) or pattern reversal stimuli (PRS). Furthermore, we investigated optimal periodic motions for each FS and PRS to enhance the performance of SSVEP-based BCIs. Periodic motions were implemented by changing the size of the stimulus according to four different temporal functions denoted by none, square, triangular, and sine, yielding a total of eight hybrid visual stimuli. Additionally, we developed the extended version of filter bank canonical correlation analysis (FBCCA), which is a state-of-the-art training-free classification algorithm for SSVEP-based BCIs, to enhance the classification accuracy for PRS-based hybrid visual stimuli. Twenty healthy individuals participated in the SSVEP-based BCI experiment to discriminate four visual stimuli with different frequencies. An average classification accuracy and information transfer rate (ITR) were evaluated to compare the performances of SSVEP-based BCIs for different hybrid visual stimuli. Additionally, the user's visual fatigue for each of the hybrid visual stimuli was also evaluated. As the result, for FS, the highest performances were reported when the periodic motion of the sine waveform was incorporated for all window sizes except for 3 s. For PRS, the periodic motion of the square waveform showed the highest classification accuracies for all tested window sizes. A significant statistical difference in the performance between the two best stimuli was not observed. The averaged fatigue scores were reported to be 5.3 ± 2.05 and 4.05 ± 1.28 for FS with sine-wave periodic motion and PRS with square-wave periodic motion, respectively. Consequently, our results demonstrated that FS with sine-wave periodic motion and PRS with square-wave periodic motion could effectively improve the BCI performances compared to conventional FS and PRS. In addition, thanks to its low visual fatigue, PRS with square-wave periodic motion can be regarded as the most appropriate visual stimulus for the long-term use of SSVEP-based BCIs, particularly for window sizes equal to or larger than 2 s.</p

Freestanding Luminescent Films of Nitrogen-Rich Carbon Nanodots toward Large-Scale Phosphor-Based White-Light-Emitting Devices

In this work, nitrogen-rich carbon nanodots (CNDs) are prepared by the emulsion-templated carbonization of polyacrylamide. The formation mechanism and chemical structure are investigated by infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies. Transmission electron microscopy also reveals that the obtained CNDs have well-developed graphitic structure and narrow size distribution without any size selection procedure. We vary the molecular weight of the polymer to control the size of the CNDs and finally obtain the CNDs rendering bright visible light under UV illumination with a high quantum yield of 40%. Given that the CNDs are worth utilizing in phosphor applications, we fabricate large-scale (20 X 20 cm) freestanding luminescent films of the CNDs based on a poly(methyl methacrylate) matrix. The polymer matrix can not only provide mechanical support but also disperse the CNDs to prevent solid-state quenching. For practical application, we demonstrate white LEDs consisting of the films as color converting phosphors and InGaN blue LEDs as illuminators. Such white LEDs exhibit no temporal degradation in the emission spectrum under practical operation conditions. This study would suggest a promising way to exploit the luminescence from solid-state CNDs and offer strong potential for future CND based solid-state lighting systems.X11128118sciescopu

Graphene Encapsulated Al Particles for Improvement of Thermal Conductivity in Composites

Graphene reinforced aluminum matrix composites (GRAMCs) with improved thermal conductivity were prepared via a pH-controlled self-assembly process that involved adjusting the concentration of dispersed graphene oxide (GO) solutions. Uniform dispersion was achieved using GO coating on the aluminum (Al) surfaces. Graphene encapsulated Al powders (Al/GO) were sintered through spark plasma sintering (SPS) to prepare bulk composites, these were then analyzed to determine the thermal and mechanical properties. The density of the Al/GO composites was determined to be 99% or more compared to the theoretical density of pure Al. The Vicker&rsquo;s hardness and thermal conductivity increased by about 47% and 15% more than the pristine Al bulks. These processes can improve properties of the thermal interface between GO and Al, enabling uniform coating without a crosslinking agent. An Al/GO composite, fabricated through the pH-controlled self-assembly process, should be useful for various applications requiring to high thermal conductivity

Comprehensive Bus Network Redesigns

TCRP Synthesis 140: Comprehensive Bus Network Redesigns provides an overview of the current state of practice regarding comprehensive bus network redesign. The study examines practices among agencies of different sizes, geographic locations, and modes. The report captures the many components that are needed to successfully plan and implement a redesign and carefully considers the goals and objectives that agencies set forth when they began that process, helping them determine whether a redesign even made sense for the agency at that point in time. Comprehensive bus network redesigns, in which transit agencies fundamentally alter the structure and organization of their bus networks, are not completely novel in transit. However, redesigns have become seemingly more common in recent years. The motivations for embarking on network redesigns vary across transit agencies, but, given the prevalence of redesigns in recent history and with more redesigns likely to come, the transit industry will benefit from improved documentation of network redesign rationales, outcomes, best practices, and challenges