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A Methodology to Evaluate Complete Streets Development in Small Towns: An Illustration from Nevada
This presentation will summarize efforts to develop a methodology to evaluate the potential benefits of Complete Streets (CSs) in small towns. It will include identifying key factors to consider and developing an approach to weigh these factors and collectively quantify them. The presentation will then illustrate the application of this approach using roadway segments in four small towns in Nevada: Ely (White Pine County), Tonopah (Nye County), Hawthorne (Mineral County), and Yerington (Lyon County). The overall study included five considerations: safety, multimodal mobility, land and neighborhood, economic, and environment. However, this presentation will summarize efforts to develop a methodology that addresses only safety and multimodal mobility considerations.
A CS project improves safety and mobility for all road users. These improvements often include adding or modifying sidewalks, bike lanes, and designated bus lanes. Additionally, they include creating safe and accessible transit stops, frequent and safe crossing opportunities such as median islands, mid-block crossings, and curb extensions, as well as implementing narrower travel lanes and roundabouts. Motor vehicle speed is a main contributor to traffic fatalities. Studies show that slower motor vehicle speeds exponentially decrease death rates for pedestrians and people riding bicycles involved in collisions with motorists. At 20 miles per hour (mph), a pedestrian or bicyclist has a 95% survival rate, compared with 55% at 30 mph and 15% at 40 mph.Speed limits for CS projects range between 25 and 35 mph, with a preference for 30 mph.
The key safety-based elements considered were traffic crashes and their outcomes (injury severities). To recognize the differences in societal impacts of the severity of injuries from crashes, the approach used the value of a statistical life (VSL) concept defined by the FHWA. For multimodal mobility, the team considered five aspects: transit, means of transportation to work, Average Daily Traffic (ADT), existing infrastructure, and pedestrian and bicyclist volumes. The evaluation considered both segment-specific data and data proximate to the segment (0.5 mile and 1.0 mile buffers around the segments). A GIS software program (ArcGIS Pro from ESRI) was used to capture, integrate, synthesize the data and perform various analyses.
The approach / method was then applied to roadway segments in four small towns in Nevada: Ely, Hawthorne, Tonopah, and Yerington. The presentation will include graphical representations of the core steps of the analytical process. The safety results showed that the segments in Ely and Hawthorne offered greater potential benefits from CSs than those in Tonopah and Yerington.The final scores for multimodal mobility suggest that all four segments would benefit from a potential CS project. The methodology presented can be adopted or adapted to evaluate CSdevelopment initiatives in other towns and rural areas across the US and beyond.
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