Minnesota TH 61 North Shore Scenic Drive

NCHRP Report 480, Transportation Research Board.This report summarizes the reconstruction of TH 61 from Duluth to the Canadian border, and the consultative processes used prior to reconstruction. It takes an engineering perspective and does not include an assessment of water resources or public use of the shoreline, although reconstruction would necessarily have impacts on both. The report casts the reconstruction of TH 61 in a very positive light, and does not contain public commentary. Key segments are extracted and reproduced below. "The Minnesota Department of Transportation's (Mn/DOT's) reconstruction and realignment of TH 61 along Lake Superior's Good Harbor Bay illustrates a context sensitive design approach that balanced transportation, community, and environmental needs without requiring exceptions to geometric design standards. This project also illustrates context sensitive design that did not arise out of contentious public involvement and controversy but rather out of proactive project management and involvement of stakeholders. The specific effects of a lower design speed (55mph rather than the proposed 70mh) were to allow the highway alignment to be shifted and design flexibility to be accomplished without the need for exceptions to geometric design standards. Full lane widths and shoulder widths and appropriate roadside design for safety was possible for the alignment based on the lower design speed. Finally, the effect of the lower speed resulted in Mn/DOT saving considerable construction costs by avoiding extensive rock cuts. Mn/DOT went beyond avoidance, though. Consistent with MNDOT's context sensitive commitments and proactive stakeholder involvement, consensus was reached in determining project purpose and need to balance transportation, community, and environmental objectives. Specifically, a consensus was reached that selecting a lower design speed appropriate for the project characteristics would provide the flexibility to shift roadway alignment and balance project objectives without requiring exceptions to geometric design standards. As part of the overall project, given the vision of the stakeholders and importance of the route as a resource, Mn/DOT seized the opportunity to enhance the environment by the following actions: A. Alignment shift provided additional space to enable the expansion and reconstruction of the Cutface Creek Rest Area; B. Mn/DOT undertook the stabilization of a shoreline erosion problem; C. Cutface Creek bank stabilization was accomplished. The application of appropriate and context sensitive design flexibility during project development led to a successful balance of transportation, community, and environmental needs that are served by the constructed project. The constructed project also met four key measures of design excellence: 1) community acceptance, 2) environmental compatibility, 3) engineering and functional credibility, and 4) financial feasibility.

A Transportation Research Program for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change and Conserving Energy Special Report 299

This report from the Transportation Research Board suggests that federal, state, and local policy makers need informed guidance about the effectiveness, costs, feasibility, and acceptability of transportation strategies to mitigate transportation greenhouse gas emissions, to conserve energy, and to adapt to climate change. The report covers strategies affecting travel and mode choice, models and decision tools, infrastructure investment options and infrastructure construction, operation, and maintenance. The report recommends beginning a research and development initiative by making a modest investment of $40 million to$45 million annually in the next surface transportation authorization that would be used to develop the best available guidance quickly on the basis of existing information and then begin to improve that guidance over time as new research is completed

Comparing the Cost-Effectiveness of Asphalt Binders for Local Roads

This Technical Summary pertains to Report 2023-19, \u201cCost Estimate of B vs. C Grade Asphalt Binders,\u201d published May 2023. More information is available at mdl.mndot.gov.Polymer-modified binders (PMB) have been shown over the decades to improve the mechanical properties of asphalt mixtures compared to unmodified binders. Considering its higher initial cost, selecting the best alternative is very important, especially for local agencies, given their limited budgets. A challenge in the materials selection process for low volume roads is the limited information available, which could allow engineers to determine if using PMBs is cost-effective. In this research effort, we investigate the use of PG 58H-34 PMB binders (grade C) and PG58S-28 unmodified binders (grade B) for low volume roads in Minnesota. Historical pavement performance data were analyzed to compare the field performance of modified and unmodified mixtures. Laboratory experiments were performed to compare the low-temperature cracking properties of polymer-modified and unmodified binders and mixtures commonly used in Minnesota. Based on the experimental results, a life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) was performed comparing the use of polymer-modified and unmodified binders for low volume roads in Minnesota. The results show that using PMBs for new construction is expected to extend the pavement service life by six years, and that using PMBs is more cost-effective than using unmodified binders for low-traffic roads

Integral Multiphase Turbulence Compressible Jet Expansion Model for Accidental Releases from Pressurized Containments

The accurate prediction of the conditions of a pressurized jet upon its expansion to atmospheric pressure is of fundamental importance in assessing the consequences associated with accidental releases of hazardous fluids from pressurized containments. An integral multiphase compressible jet expansion model which for the first time accounts for turbulence generation is presented. Real fluid behavior is accounted for applying a suitable equation of state. By use of the accidental release of two-phase CO2 from a pressurized system as an example, the proposed model is shown to provide far better predictions of the fully expanded jet momentum and hence its downstream flow characteristics as compared to existing integral models where the impact of turbulence generation is ignored

Verifying the operational definition of neighborhood for the psychosocial impact of structural deterioration

The physical decay of neighborhoods is associated with social conditions such as disease risk, poor mental health, and fear of crime. Researchers assessing neighborhood effects commonly operationalize neighborhoods via municipal boundaries such as U.S. Census Tracts, although more sophisticated analyses examine structures within a defined radius of respondents, typically .25-mile. This study verifies the .25-mile heuristic as a sound operational definition for neighborhood residential structures consequential to social conditions with measures of social contact with neighbors, perceptions of social capital, fear of neighborhood crime, and satisfaction with neighborhood quality of life. Deteriorating commercial structures cluster in smaller areas than deteriorating residential structures; however, the peak consequential radius appears to occur at 4 times the distance of residential structures. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57514/1/20216_ftp.pd

New geometric design consistency model based on operating speed profiles for road safety evaluation

[EN] To assist in the on-going effort to reduce road fatalities as much as possible, this paper presents a new methodology to evaluate road safety in both the design and redesign stages of two-lane rural highways. This methodology is based on the analysis of road geometric design consistency, a value which will be a surrogate measure of the safety level of the two-lane rural road segment. The consistency model presented in this paper is based on the consideration of continuous operating speed profiles. The models used for their construction were obtained by using an innovative GPS-data collection method that is based on continuous operating speed profiles recorded from individual drivers. This new methodology allowed the researchers to observe the actual behavior of drivers and to develop more accurate operating speed models than was previously possible with spot-speed data collection, thereby enabling a more accurate approximation to the real phenomenon and thus a better consistency measurement. Operating speed profiles were built for 33 Spanish two-lane rural road segments, and several consistency measurements based on the global and local operating speed were checked. The final consistency model takes into account not only the global dispersion of the operating speed, but also some indexes that consider both local speed decelerations and speeds over posted speeds as well. For the development of the consistency model, the crash frequency for each study site was considered, which allowed estimating the number of crashes on a road segment by means of the calculation of its geometric design consistency. Consequently, the presented consistency evaluation method is a promising innovative tool that can be used as a surrogate measure to estimate the safety of a road segment.The authors would like to thank the Center for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works (CEDEX) of the Spanish Ministry of PublicWorks for partially subsidizing this research.We also wish to thank the Infrastructure and Transportation Department of the General Directorate of Public Works of the Valencian Government, to the Valencian Provincial Council, and to the Ministry of the Interior, especially the General Directorate of Traffic of Spain, for their cooperation in field data gathering.Camacho Torregrosa, FJ.; Pérez Zuriaga, AM.; Campoy Ungria, JM.; García García, A. (2013). New geometric design consistency model based on operating speed profiles for road safety evaluation. Accident Analysis and Prevention. 61:33-42. doi:10.1016/j.aap.2012.10.001S33426

Interaction between motor vehicles and bicycles at two-lane roundabouts: a driving volatility-based analysis

Drivers' instantaneous decisions regarding speed and acceleration/deceleration, as well as the time rate of acceleration change (jerk) can result in a volatility driving behaviour with significant impact on cyclist safety. The contribution of this article is the assessment of driving volatility in motor vehicle (MV)-bicycle interactions at two-lane roundabouts. Traffic flow and bicycle GPS data were collected from two two-lane roundabouts. Then, traffic, emissions and safety models were used to evaluate volatility impacts on safety, pollutant emissions and traffic performance. The findings showed jerk have an impact on driving volatility between MVs and bicycles, regardless of roundabout design with higher amplitude of variation for MVs. However, MVs had higher acceleration-deceleration variation than bicycles.publishe

Cluster Analysis for Diminishing Heterogeneous Opinions of Service Quality Public Transport Passengers

[EN] One of the principal measures that public transport administrations are following for reaching a sustainable transportation in the cities consists on attract a higher number of citizens towards the use of public transport modes, by offering high quality services. Collecting users opinions is the best way of detecting where the service is failing and which aspects are been provided successfully. The main problem that has to be faced for analyzing service quality is the subjective nature of its measurement, offering heterogeneous assessments among passengers about the service. Stratifying the sample of users on segments of passengers which have more uniform opinions about the service can help to reduce this heterogeneity. This stratification usually is conducted based on the social and demographic characteristics of the passengers. However, there are more advance techniques that permits to identify more homogeneous groups of users. One of these techniques is the Cluster Analysis, which is a data mining technique that can be used for segmenting the sample of passengers on groups that share some common characteristics, and that have more homogeneous perceptions about the service. This technique has been applied in other fields of transport engineering but it has never been applied for searching homogeneous groups of users with regards to service quality evaluation in a public transport service. For this reason, the aim of this work is to find groups of passengers that perceive the quality of the service in a more homogeneous way, and to apply to this clusters a suitable statistic technique that permit us to discover which are the variables that more influence the passengers¿ overall evaluation about the service. The comparison among the results of each cluster will show considerable differences among them and also with the results obtained using the global sample.This study is sponsored by the Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Economía of the Junta de Andalucía (Spain) through the Excellence Research Project denominated Q-METROBUS-Quality of service indicator for METROpolitan public BUS transport services . The authors also acknowledge the Granada Consorcio de Transportes for making the data set available for this study. Likewise, Griselda López wishes to express her acknowledgement to the regional ministry of Economy, Innovation and Science of the regional government of Andalusia (Spain) for their scholarship to train teachers and researchers in Deficit AreasDe Oña, R.; López-Maldonado, G.; Díez De Los Ríos, F.; De Oña, J. (2014). Cluster Analysis for Diminishing Heterogeneous Opinions of Service Quality Public Transport Passengers. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 162:459-466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.12.227S45946616