Coordinated transportation and land use planning in the developing world : the case of Mexico City

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-139).Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2002.Transportation, land use and the environment are inextricably linked. In recent decades there have been efforts, primarily in the developed world, to coordinate transportation and land use planning so as to use land resources more efficiently and promote the use of transit and non-motorized transport (walking and biking) at the expense of the automobile. This is done in order to reduce congestion and pollution and to provide more equitable access to jobs. This thesis examines the applicability of coordinated transportation and land use planning methods such as transit-oriented development (TOD) in the developing world, and more specifically, in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). TOD is a policy that promotes dense, mixed land uses near transit stations. Essential to its success are an extensive transit system, government incentives to developers and zoning regulations, and a strong real estate market. In the developing world, where cities are growing fast and most people still do not own cars, TOD provides an opportunity to design the urban form of the growing cities to be transit-oriented. Low-income people can thus be served by cheaper high capacity transit, and can thus spend less of their meager income on transportation and have better access to jobs. They will make fewer and shorter trips by low capacity transit such as informal modes, reducing congestion and pollution. In the long term, TOD may slow down motorization and mitigate its effects. Mexico City faces a crisis of mobility, environment and equity. It needs coordinated transportation and land use planning to curb further sprawl, which would worsen these problems. It has many of the prerequisites for TOD. It has the densities, an extensive Metro system (although not extensive enough), and embryonic (and still weak) metropolitan planning organizations. Opportunities for coordinated transportation and land use planning there include station area development, downtown redevelopment, real estate development along the proposed suburban rail line, and a policy of building new affordable housing within walking distance of high capacity transit. The greater the geographical scope of each option, the more government involvement it requires, and the larger its potential positive impact is.by Michael Gilat.M.C.P

A process for developing standards to promote quality in general practice

Background: Since 1991, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Standards for general practices (the Standards) have provided a framework for quality care, risk management and best practice in the operation of Australian general practices. The Standards are also linked to incentives for general practice remuneration. These Standards were revised in 2017. Objective: The objective of this study is to describe the process undertaken to develop the fifth edition Standards published in 2017 to inform future standards development both nationally and internationally. Method: A modified Delphi process was deployed to develop the fifth edition Standards. Development was directed by the RACGP and led by an expert panel of GPs and representatives of stakeholder groups who were assisted and facilitated by a team from RACGP. Each draft was released for stakeholder feedback and tested twice before the final version was submitted for approval by the RACGP Board. Results: Four rounds of consultation and two rounds of piloting were carried out over 32 months. The Standards were redrafted after each round. One hundred and fifty-two individuals and 225 stakeholder groups participated in the development of the Standards. Twenty-three new indicators were recommended and grouped into three sections in a new modular structure that was different from the previous edition. Conclusion: The Standards represent the consensus view of national stakeholders on the indicators of quality and safety in Australian general practice and primary care

Exploration of the Relationships Between Leisure Activity Participation Frequency and Social Capital

69A3551747116This study examines the effects of social capital on the frequency of leisure activity participation. Two retrospective surveys of activity behavior were completed in Fall 2019 and 2020. The surveys included questions to ascertain individuals\u2019 instrumental and expressive social capital through position, resource, and generalized name generators. Respondents were asked about participation across a vast list of specific leisure activities over the previous three months. Respondents with greater expressive social capital participated in social leisure activities more frequently than those with less expressive social capital. This relationship was found to not hold for the activities: drinking and socializing, attending church, and dining out

An Exploratory Analysis to Estimate the Value of Free Charging Bundle in Electric Vehicle Purchases

69A3551747116Our research establishes a national estimate of the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a free charging bundle in the United States electric vehicle market. Using a stated choice experiment conducted using a probability-based sample from an internet panel, 36 choice scenarios were generated with 9 scenarios received per respondent. Individuals chose between three vehicles (two EVs and a comparable gasoline vehicle) with varying vehicle attributes: purchase price, driving range, annual fuel cost, and years of free charging. For EVs, the free charging bundle was offered at four levels: zero, one, two, and three years. Results from the mixed logit and latent class analysis showed heterogeneity in the sensitivity to the free charging time scale with a significant share of the population showing no sensitivity to a single year of free charging. All population segments experienced some WTP for free charging at the two- and three-year time frames

Financial Benefits of Proposed Access Management Treatments

Transportation access management is defined as systematic control of the design, spacing, operation, and locations of street connections, interchanges, driveways, and median openings on the roadway with the purpose of providing vehicle access while preserving the efficiency and safety of the entire transportation system. Access management is a proven method for maintaining and improving roadway capacity; traffic flow; and the safety of traffic, pedestrians, and bicyclists on rural and urban highways and streets. No locally calibrated tool existed that captures the complexity of the current and future public benefits of proposed access management for estimating the financial and other benefits and comparing them with the associated financial costs. Therefore, this study had three primary objectives: (1) develop and validate benefits estimation methodology, (2) compile and derive supporting data for benefits estimation methodology, and (3) develop a software tool for benefits estimation. The result is a simple, straightforward benefits estimation methodology focused on benefits related to traffic operations, traffic safety, environmental impacts, and project costs. The methodology is facilitated by the two spreadsheet software tools that implement the benefits estimation and the calculation of traffic safety benefits, with Synchro/SimTraffic utilized for estimation of traffic operations and environmental impacts

Acute mesenteric ischemia : guidelines of the World Society of Emergency Surgery

Acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) is typically defined as a group of diseases characterized by an interruption of the blood supply to varying portions of the small intestine, leading to ischemia and secondary inflammatory changes. If untreated, this process will eventuate in life threatening intestinal necrosis. The incidence is low, estimated at 0.09-0.2% of all acute surgical admissions. Therefore, although the entity is an uncommon cause of abdominal pain, diligence is always required because if untreated, mortality has consistently been reported in the range of 50%. Early diagnosis and timely surgical intervention are the cornerstones of modern treatment and are essential to reduce the high mortality associated with this entity. The advent of endovascular approaches in parallel with modern imaging techniques may provide new options. Thus, we believe that a current position paper from World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) is warranted, in order to put forth the most recent and practical recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of AMI. This review will address the concepts of AMI with the aim of focusing on specific areas where early diagnosis and management hold the strongest potential for improving outcomes in this disease process. Some of the key points include the prompt use of CT angiography to establish the diagnosis, evaluation of the potential for revascularization to re-establish blood flow to ischemic bowel, resection of necrotic intestine, and use of damage control techniques when appropriate to allow for re-assessment of bowel viability prior to definitive anastomosis and abdominal closure.Peer reviewe

Characterizing Strength Loss in High Plasticity Clays along Alabama Highways

Strength loss in high plasticity clay soils is a common occurrence along roadways in western and central Alabama and has considerable impact on pavement distress and slope failures. Approximately $16 million was spent to repair slope failures in western and central Alabama between 2005 and 2015 with many of these failures occurring in areas with high plasticity Prairie clays. Selecting strengths for these soils to use in slope stability analyses is often a key source of uncertainty and the selected strengths must account for effects of loading conditions and any potential changes in strength over time. For high plasticity clay, such as the Prairie clays in Alabama, repeated cycles of wetting and drying can reduce the available drained shear strength to the fully softened condition before large movements occur. This reduction in strength can lead to failure without any change in loading and accounting for this potential strength loss when analyzing the stability of these slopes is critical to obtain accurate results. The torsional ring shear test can measure both the fully softened strength (used for first time failures) and the residual strength (used for ongoing or reactivated failures) of high plasticity clays. For this study, clay samples were collected at six landslide sites around Alabama. Samples were tested to determine the index properties, electrical resistivity, mineralogy, and fully softened and residual strengths. The results from these tests were compared with existing correlations to determine which correlations were the most appropriate for use in Alabama. For three of the sites, slope stability analyses were performed to compare with observed performance at the site. The results show that the strength envelopes from ring shear testing are consistent with the observations at all three sites, although nonlinear envelopes are needed for some sites. Recommendations are provided for correlations that can be used to estimate strengths when ring shear testing is not available and for cases where existing correlations do not provide good estimates

Macro Micro Studio: A Prototype Energy Autonomous Laboratory - supplementary information

Supplementary information including concept development, design drawings, shell geometry and technical data. © The University of Dunde

An Empirical Assessment of the Role of Attitudes and Identification in Safety Research

69A3551747116Research in highway safety has struggled to deal adequately with two issues: the role that attitudes may play on risk perception and resulting crash and injury-severity likelihoods; and the issue of identification in safety modeling caused by self-selective sampling of safety data (the fact that riskier drivers are likely to be over-represented in crash data bases). This study addresses these two points by first collecting data that focused on highway safety perceptions and using observed crash data from the state of Florida. Statistical model estimation results that address the question of how vehicle usage has changed post-pandemic indicate that safer drivers have reduced their vehicle usage significantly more than riskier drivers. With a greater proportion of vehicle miles travelled now being riskier drivers, this has likely resulted in fundamental shift in injury severity probabilities in observed crashes, which is confirmed using Florida crash data from 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (pandemic) where a statistically significant shift was found in the factors that determined injury severities in highway the two years. The results indicate that the role of safety attitudes and perceptions are important considerations in the analysis of highway crash data and must be considered in highway-safety practice. The results also indicate the need to focus attention on identification in highway-safety practice because observed statistical estimates may not be entirely due to the effect of specific explanatory variables but may be in part due the change in the mix of risky and safe drivers, a possibility that has important policy implications