Architecture Commons^™

Intelligent Transportation Systems (Its): A Survey Of What It Is, What It Does, Where It Faulters, And Where To Go With It, Niklas Nordstrom

City and Regional Planning

The world of technology continues to find itself incorporated into an ever-expanding number of fields with a rapidly increasing number of applications. One of these is transportation, under the umbrella of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The intention of this application at a macro scale is to increase the surface transport safety, efficiency, and convenience. As technological improvements continue to be made, ITS grows in popularity and implementation, and is now found in many cities across the United States. Correct implementation of ITS could have huge benefits in the transportation sector, but without thinking about its implications now, there is a …

Frontier - A Bus Rapid Transit System In Frisco, Tx, Matthias Berry

City and Regional Planning

This study explores the increasing inaccessibility produced by reliance and catered infrastructure to mass ownership of personal vehicles. Accessing employment, service, and activity destinations has become extremely difficult for those who cannot possess, afford, or operate personal vehicles; even cyclists have a more difficult time navigating roads due to limited infrastructure and accommodations. Public transit has often become an afterthought within cities, with local routes competing with other cars on the road and adding to overall traffic volume. Bus-Rapid Transit (BRT) systems are an expanding concept within car-centric regions, often being called the "subways, but on wheels", that not only …

Development Of A Model Sustainability Management Plan For The City Of Morgantown, West Virginia, Caitlyn Elizabeth Lewis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This report has been prepared to demonstrate the research for a model planning document with a focus on sustainability in Morgantown, WV. It discusses the role of three categories in the context of sustainability and proposes a design solution for selected areas of concern throughout the City of Morgantown in order to demonstrate opportunities for a sustainable approach toward resolution for city officials.

The City of Morgantown, West Virginia, is a college town along the Monongahela River with a backstory of industrialism that is echoed by many other places in Appalachia. However, distinctively, in Morgantown 25,000 college students populate the …

Our Streets: Increasing Equity In Active Transportation Planning Through Community Outreach, Jordan Hoy

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT Significant research has demonstrated that active transportation infrastructure is essential for the growth and livability of San Francisco: it increases access to economic opportunities, promotes overall improved public health, encourages mobility without contributing to roadway congestion, prevents traffic injuries and fatalities, and supports the sustainability goals of the city. Despite the fact that communities of color will benefit the most from active transportation infrastructure development, historical disenfranchisement in tandem with a lack of diverse representation within public participation contributes to an inequitable distribution of walking and biking investments throughout the city of San Francisco. While research shows that Black …

Rail Fixed Guideway Systems In Western U.S. Regions, Kelly A. Beavers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research explores the policy factors influencing the intraregional development of rail transit. For the purpose of this research, policy factors include: institutional arrangements, factors associated with governance, and factors in the policymaking process. The research questions are studied in five case study MSAs within the Pacific West and Mountain West regions of the United States: Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA; and Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR. The foundational problems that frame this research are the challenges of urban planning at a regional scale, specifically for transportation. The more specific challenge of transportation planning is situated within …

Health Infrastructure Accessibility In San Joaquin, Ca, Vinson Lok Kwan, Trisha Phuong Tran

City and Regional Planning

The purpose of this study is to assess the health infrastructure and accessibility in San Joaquin, California through the existing conditions of the city, reviewing various cities facing similar conditions, and creating potential solutions or recommendations to be implemented into the city to accommodate growth and overall well-being in the community.

Health infrastructure and accessibility is important to every community since it has the ability to influence the quality-of-care individuals are able to receive. When it comes to infrastructure, it is important to determine the underlying health conditions the local population faces and whether the services provided are adequate in …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Active Transportation, Timothy Scott Mcbirney

City and Regional Planning

This research project examines the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had and will continue to have on active transportation, in particular, cycling. This research was initiated by my own interest in cycling for both recreational and utility purposes as well as articles I had read on the rise in recreational cycling over the course of the pandemic. I wanted to understand and summarize the best practices for converting the increase in cycling for recreation into a meaningful, long-term shift toward active modes in urban transportation in the future. This paper explores how the pandemic has impacted active transportation around the country …

Going Green: A Comparative Analysis Of Green Urbanism In Paris And Shanghai, Jeanne Torp

Honors Theses

As climate change becomes more pressing with each day and as we scramble to slow down the challenges it poses, adapting the means of operation within our cities will become an invaluable tool for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint. This paper seeks to study the ways in which green infrastructure in global cities can be used to do just that—adapting to and mitigating the effects of challenges resulting from climate change. In order to provide a broad overview of the effectiveness of such green infrastructure systems across the globe, this research will focus on two cities that vary greatly in their …

Autonomous Shuttles In Santa Fe Springs, Brendan Edward Norton

City and Regional Planning

The urban planning implications of AV Shuttles and how they could be incorporated into Santa Fe Springs, Los Angeles, California.

The Yamanote Loop: Unifying Rail Transportation And Disaster Resilience In Tokyo, Mackenzie Wade

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

As climate change and population growth persist, and as the world rapidly urbanizes, major cities across the globe will face unprecedented strains. The risk of devastating impact from natural disasters increases in areas with a growing concentration of people. Megacities in Asia are the most at-risk of natural disasters, given their geographic location and high population density. With the highest projected population growth in the world, Asian cities must quickly expand and adapt their existing infrastructure to accommodate the transforming global conditions.

A remarkable anomaly amongst Asian megacities, Tokyo, Japan is effectively adapting to its earthquake-prone environment. Within the last …

Copenhagenization: The Spread Of The Copenhagen Cycling Gospel; A Case Study In Urban Policy Mobility, Rozaliya Momot

Senior Theses and Projects

Copenhagen is synonymous with biking culture, and is one of the first things people think about in relation to the Danish capital. It has become constructed as a policy model for urban planning, especially for cycling policy, and cities around the world look to it as a "best practice" example. As American cities attempt to change their transportation dynamics and encourage alternate forms of transportation, they increasingly look to cycling as a solution, and refer to Copenhagen as a model. In this thesis, I examine how this model has been packaged and exported by influential Danish consultants and public figures …

Is Transportation Planning Effective? A Critical Review Of Long-Range Regional Transportation Planning In The United States, Razieh Nadafianshahamabadi

Civil Engineering ETDs

The Federal-Aid Highway Act requires urban areas with a population greater than 50,000 to create Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to ensure that funding for transportation projects and programs are based on a continuing, cooperative, and comprehensive planning process. A major responsibility of each MPO is the creation of a long-range transportation plan (LRTP) that addresses the transportation needs of a metropolitan region over the next twenty years or more. While long-range regional transportation planning goals have grown to include a wide range of concerns and technical methods for evaluating planning scenarios have advanced substantially over the past 50 years, there …

Streets Of San Francisco: An Analysis Of The City's Transportation Network, Complete Streets Guidelines And Policies, Ian Xavier Connolly

City and Regional Planning

Transportation is a key element to everyday life, providing an efficient connection and movement of goods and people. While there are different modes of transportation, motor vehicles are still the preferred and highly used option, providing people the luxury of traveling to farther distances on their own time and in their own comfort. However, in a country where cities are increasingly becoming cores of pedestrian traffic, motor vehicles make these places less walkable, as well as produce pollution through their use of gasoline. At a time when we must continue to consider the safety and environmental aspects of transportation, we …

Exploring Transit-Based Environmental Injustices In San Gabriel Valley And Greater Los Angeles, Bailey Lai

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis attempts to disentangle the multilayered interactions between Greater Los Angeles’s history, its built environment, and its inequitable treatment of different peoples, focusing on how transportation in surrounding suburban communities like San Gabriel Valley has developed in relation to the inner city of Los Angeles. Greater Los Angeles contains a long, winding trajectory of transit-based environmental injustices, from the indigenous societies being overtaken by the Spanish missions, to the railroads and streetcars boosting the farmlands and urban growth of Los Angeles, leading into the decline of transit and rise of automobile-oriented suburbia. Within the San Gabriel Valley, the suburban …

The Need For Enhanced Physical Infrastructure In The United States, Tanvi Gandham

CMC Senior Theses

An examination of necessary infrastructure improvements in the United States.

Transportation Related Challenges For Persons With Disabilities, Graydon Bascom

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Gaining access to transportation is essential for obtaining employment, education, healthcare, and social interaction. Individuals who face difficulties in gaining this access are considered ‘transportation disadvantaged’ and include individuals of lower socioeconomic status, aging individuals, and persons with disabilities. In our autodependent society, individuals with disabilities face even fewer opportunities to interact within their communities. In order to better understand how individuals with disabilities are limited by their access to transportation, two studies were conducted.

The first study specifically seeks to examine how individuals with disabilities gain access to transportation and the interpersonal relationships that affect opportunities for social participation …

Measuring Access To Employment To Guide And Evaluate Public Transit Service Planning In New Orleans, Kevin Harrison

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

New software and technology is making it easier than ever before for public transportation planners to evaluate how quickly residents can reach jobs and other destinations. Because in the past it was difficult to measure access to opportunities, these concepts remained primarily in the theoretical and academic realms of research. This thesis reviews methods that could be used to evaluate routine bus service improvements and performs a comparative analysis of different methods in the context of New Orleans. There are many different variables in how the analysis could be performed, but this thesis focuses on the role that time of …

Automated Vehicles: A Guide For Planners And Policymakers, Charlie Coles

Master's Theses

Automated vehicles are those which are capable of sensing their environments in order to perform at least some aspects of the safety-critical control (like steering, throttling, or braking) without direct human input. As a guide for planners and policymakers, the objective of this thesis is to develop a strong foundation for anticipating the potential impacts resulting from advancements in vehicle automation. To establish the foundation, this thesis uses a robust qualitative methodology, coupling a review of literature on the potential advantages and disadvantages of vehicle automation and lessons from past innovations in transportation, with recent trends of the Millennial Generation, …

Reconnecting The Urban Web: Chicago's Failed Olympic Hope, Eric Archer

Masters Theses

‘Towers in the park,’ a destructive urbanistic typology that gained notoriety with idealistic projects by Le Corbusier, are prevalent in American cities. This architectural and urban concept consists of mono-functional high-rise towers, typically residential, placed on a superblock of unprogrammed over-scaled greenspace. The original intention was to create order within the city and provide plenty of landscaping and urban space for the city’s occupants. Noble in goals, these mega-towers have been chastised for their lack of character, inappropriate scale, and the inability to create vibrant public space that promote interaction and community by creating an over concentration of segregated nodes …

Moving Towards A Greener Future: An Investigation Of How Transit-Oriented Development Has The Potential To Redefine Cities Around Sustainability, Margaret E. Smith

Scripps Senior Theses

How does transportation shape the cities we live in? This paper takes a close look at the practice of transit-oriented development to assess its implications for the future of urban areas. Through the design of a hypothetical light rail station in the suburb of Redmond, WA, this paper demonstrates how targeting sustainable development around transit has the potential to influence entire towns to “go green,” and proposes that, moving forward, cities be designed to maximize mobility, livability, and sustainability.

Bridging The Gap: Community-Oriented Transit Development, Matthew C. Jones

Masters Theses

The bedroom community has become a prevalent and oft-criticized part of the modern architectural landscape. These suburban towns have continually grown radially outward from major cities across the nation since the end of the Second World War. While these suburbs have served to fulfill housing needs and wants of society, pressure to develop has often forced this growth to occur at a much more rapid rate than a traditional community. This rapid development has led to poorly implemented infrastructure, especially with regard to walkability and public transportation, which has fallen short of meeting the needs of users. These solutions in …

San Luis Obispo Regional Transit Authority: Recommendations For Future Service Demand, Alexander J. Fuchs

Master's Theses

Transit agencies at all levels of government monitor trends in services, operations, and ridership using performance indicators. Federal and state agencies use these performance indicators in the appropriation of funds to transit agencies. Public transportation is subsidized through federal, state and local programs while only a portion of the operating expenses are covered through rider fares. In order to gather information on riders and travel patterns, transit agencies primarily focus on current transit riders, many of which are transit dependent populations. By definition, these populations use public transit services as the primary or only means of transportation. As a result, …

Political Feasibility Of Implementing Smart Growth Development Strategies In The Monterey Bay Area, Kristin Mckee

Master's Theses

Development over the past sixty years has created patterned growth and expansion outward from city centers, separating residences from commercial areas and employment centers. This separation of land uses has increased automobile dependency, which increases vehicle miles traveled and associated greenhouse gas emissions. California Senate Bill 375 mandates the development and implementation of a “Sustainable Communities Strategy” in order to plan regional land use and transportation in a coordinated fashion. In coordination with this effort, the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) is developing the Regional Implementation Plan for Smart Growth Development Strategies, which entails the identification of smart …

True North: Transportation Issues In Riverdale And Edenwald, Amelia Zaino

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

The Impacts Of Road Capacity Removal, Jason E. Billings

Master's Theses

The road infrastructure of North America is aging, and many governments are faced with a critical decision: do we repair or remove freeways from our urban centers? Freeway repair is exceptionally expensive, but removing a freeway is widely seen as a risky venture which may result in negative traffic effects. Therefore, it is necessary to gain a clearer understanding of how removing road capacity effects traffic distribution. Three freeway segments were ultimately selected for case study analysis: two in San Francisco and one in Milwaukee. This analysis consisted of identifying changes in the traffic volumes and volume-capacity (V/C) ratios in …