METHODOLOGY FOR EVALUATING HIGHWAY-RAILWAY GRADE SEPARATIONS

To better allocate scarce regional transportation resources when considering the construction of grade-separated highway-railway crossings in Central Arkansas, Metroplan, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, created a methodology to provide a consistent quantitative evaluation of potential locations. This methodology considered use of seven quantitative factors: noise, community cohesion, delay, accessibility, connectivity, geographic distribution, and safety. Each factor yielded a value between 0 and 1, which allows an equally weighted comparison between the different factors as well as a net sum of all factors. The new result, then, is an aggregate value that can aid in the evaluation and prioritization of potential highway-railway grade separation locations