Category: Transportation Operations

  • LOS Redux

    Last month, Brian penned an excellent post about California’s switch of performance measures. This podcast provides a narrative of how that came about, and how poisonous vehicle level of service (LOS) was as a performance standard. Not to be missed.

  • California’s New Performance Metrics & Getting What You Measure

    The way we quantify how well our roads are (or aren’t) working isn’t something that tends to get a whole lot of play outside of the transportation wonkery, but it has a drastic effect on policies and livability. The most commonly used metrics to describe our system, including the infamous level-of-service metric, are drawn from…

  • The Story Told by the Blinking Hand

    Joe Rose penned an interesting Q&A yesterday that takes up one of my favorite topics: the Flashing Don’t Walk (FDW) phase. While he caricatures the consequences of the widespread non-compliance with the FDW indication just a wee bit—it may cause motorists (gasp!) delays, and in extreme circumstances may even cause (gasp! recoil!) cycle failures, where…

  • A few new TriMet service surprises

    TriMet has now announced all the details (i.e. detailed schedules) of its service changes which will take affect Sept 2. While most of the changes should be no surprise, given the intense debate over them back during the spring budget discussions, there are a few interesting surprises. Cameron Johnson has a good write-up over at…

  • Revealing a Certain Modal Bias

    This announcement from the City has drawn some ire in active transportation circles: Green street construction will close bicycle lanes and sidewalks on NE 122nd Avenue between NE Fremont and NE Shaver. Construction starts tomorrow (Tuesday, August 23) and will last about ten weeks. The work will also close on-street parking spaces in the construction…