Assessing Impacts of Time Use on Children's Physical Fitness in Relation to Risk for Obesity and Diabetes

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Summary: Researchers from the transportation, planning and health fields share the common goal of promoting physically active lifestyle. One challenge that researchers often face is the measurement of physical activity, particularly among children. This is because the sporadic nature of children’s physical activity patterns makes it difficult to recall and quantify such activities. Additionally, children’s lower cognitive functioning compared to adults prevents them from accurately recalling their activities. This presentation will describe the design and application of a novel self-report instrument - the Graphs for Recalling Activity Time (GReAT) - for measuring children’s activity time use patterns. The instrument was applied in a study of children’s risk for obesity and diabetes in a predominately Hispanic community in Milwaukee, WI. Time-use data for two weekdays and one weekend day were collected for various physical and sedentary activities. The data was then assessed against measurements of the children’s cardiovascular fitness, weight status and insulin resistance through exploratory analysis and structured equation modeling. Findings on GReAT’s reliability and new evidence on the impacts of time-use in different activities on children’s risk for...

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Protected intersections are about to get a big shot of science

Low-Stress Bicyling and Bike Network Connectivity

The video begins at 2:06.

Abstract: The most fundamental need in a bicycling network is low-stress connectivity, that is, providing routes between people’s origins and destinations that do not require cyclists to use links that exceed their tolerance for traffic stress, and that do not involve an undue level of detour. Evaluating network connectivity therefore requires both a set of criteria for tolerable levels of traffic stress and measures of connectivity appropriate to a bikeway network. 

We propose criteria by which road segments can be classified into four levels of traffic stress (LTS), corresponding to four levels of traffic tolerance in the population. LTS 1 is suitable for children; LTS 2, based on Dutch bikeway design criteria, represents the traffic stress that most adults will tolerate; LTS 3 and 4 represent greater levels of stress. As a case study, every street in San Jose, California was classified by LTS. Maps in which only lower stress links are displayed reveal a city fractured into low-stress islands separated from one another by barriers that can only be crossed using high stress links. 

To measure connectivity, two points in the network are said to be connected at a given level of traffic stress if there is a path connecting them that uses only links that do not exceed that level of stress and whose length does not exceed a detour criterion (25% longer than the most direct...

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Are Millennials Really the Generation That Bikes?

By Jennifer Dill, Ph.D.,TREC Director

 Much has been written about millennials and their travel choices, both in the popular press and academic journals. The common theme of the storyline in the popular press is that millennials are driving less, owning fewer cars, and/or not getting their driver’s license. As a complement to that, they are early adopters of new modes, such as car sharing, bike sharing, and ridehailing. One assertion is that they would rather be using their mobile device in a Lyft car or on transit, than sitting behind the wheel. While the popular press often attributes these shifts to fundamental changes in attitudes or values, research from academics such as Noreen McDonald tells a more complicated story. McDonald found that economics, both decreased employment and the overall dampening in travel demand, explain much of the decrease in millennials’ driving. Switching modes did not, though attitudes and electronic...

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European Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning (Scan Tour Report)

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Webinar: Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts with Alternate Signal Control Strategies on Oct 16, 2018

Webinar: Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts with Alternate Signal Control Strategies

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OVERVIEW

There is nationwide interest in supporting sustainable and active transportation modes such as bicycling and walking due to the many benefits associated with them, including reduced congestion, lower emissions and improved health. Although the number of bicyclists is increasing, safety remains a top concern. In urban areas, a common crash type involving bicycles at intersections is the “right hook” where a right-turning vehicle collides with a through bicyclist. While geometric treatments and pavement markings have been studied, there is a lack of research on signal timing treatments to address right-hook bicycle-vehicle conflicts.

Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts with Alternate Signal Control Strategies, published in April 2018, is the first study to explore bicycle signal control strategies for addressing bicycle-vehicle conflicts. This study analyzed the operational impacts of traditional...

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Bicycling in Davis, CA : A Critical Look at Policy and Behavior in the First Platinum Bicycle City in the U.S.

The video begins at 3:15.

In 2005, Davis, California was the first city in the U.S. to be named a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. Although Davis has long been held up as a model bicycling community, where residents bike as a normal part of their daily lives, it has not been rigorously studied. Several studies underway at UC Davis are helping to fill this gap: an analysis of the history of bicycling policy in Davis; a behavioral study of factors contributing to high levels of bicycling in Davis in comparison; and an evaluation of a recent campaign to get kids to bicycle to soccer games. This presentation offers highlights from a three studies to provide a critical assessment of Davis as a bicycling community.

Susan Handy is a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy and the director of the Sustainable Transportation Center at the University of California Davis. Her research focuses on the connections between land use and transportation, and she is well known for her work on the impact of neighborhood design on travel behavior. She serves on three committees of the Transportation Research Board and on the editorial boards of several journals in the fields of planning, transportation, and public health.

With pilot project, city will turn Naito Parkway into public space for all

Webinar: Pedestrians Count! – How to Measure Foot Traffic

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View Q&A: This document contains questions that were submitted during the webinar and the answers to them, which were not included in the broadcast due to time constaints.

Learn from experts and share your knowledge of how to count pedestrians. Are people with clipboards the only way? What technologies work and how can we use them? How can an agency improve an existing or start a new pedestrian count program? Join us for an information sharing webinar on this quickly evolving topic. We will learn from leaders in the field and encourage active audience involvement, so come prepared to share your experience!

This IBPI webinar is part of a project sponsored by FHWA to study best practices in pedestrian traffic monitoring.

Portland State University is working with ICF International and Sprinkle Consulting on a contract to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration to advise them on potential improvements to the Traffic Monitoring Guide specific to pedestrian travel.

Featuring:

  • David Jones of the Federal Highway Administration will introduce the topic and...
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Highlights from the Green Lane: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Protected Cycling Facilities

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Summary: Cycling is on the rise across the U.S. and its popularity has grown beyond the usual leaders - Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Davis, CA, Minneapolis, MN and Boulder, CO. New York City, NY Chicago, IL and Washington, DC are among those cities making significant investments in bike infrastructure in recent years and have realized substantial growth in people taking to the streets on two wheels. This presentation will summarize some results from our comprehensive assessment of the safety, operations, economic impacts, user experience, and perceptions of new protected bikeways in 5 cities U.S. cities (Austin, TX; Chicago, IL; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, D.C.). To support this research, the team collected and analyzed 204 hours of video, 2,300 returned surveys of residents, and 1,111 returned surveys from people intercepted riding the new facilities.

Bios: Dr. Christopher M. Monsere is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science at Portland State University. Dr. Monsere’s primary research interests are in the areas of multimodal transportation safety; management and dissemination of large transportation datasets; and improvements in transportation...

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