Case Study No. 2: The Training Needs of Transportation Professionals Regarding the Pedestrian and Bicyclist

Federal Highway Administration1992PDFTech ReportCarter, Everett. CLevinson, DavidUnited States. Federal Highway AdministrationUnited States. Federal Highway AdministrationUnited StatesEducation and trainingCase studiesTransportation planningMultimodal transportationPedestrian trafficBicycle travelFHWA-PD-92-038This paper is entitled \u201cThe Training Needs of Transportation Professionals Regarding the Pedestrian and Bicyclist.\u201d The transportation professional as used here is generally someone with engineering, planning, or enforcement training, who serves in that capacity as an educator or as an administrator of a surface transportation system. In planning, designing, or administering the transportation system, the user must be kept in mind. This user wants to take the safest and most efficient means of travel from origin to destination, and so may choose to walk, bike, take transit, or drive. However, in most American college transportation planning and engineering programs, attention is paid only to the automobile mode, with an elective course offered on transit design. No provision is made for studying exclusively the needs of the pedestrian or bicyclist, and little discussion is provided in more general courses on how to integrate modes together. Compensating . for this absence of coverage is the focus of this paper. Transportation professionals generally have a handful of common references on their shelves or in their office. These include the AASHTO Green Book, the ITE Trafic Engineering Handbook, the Highway Capacity Manual, and the Manual of Uniform Trafic Control Devices. These books are geared strongly to the automobile, and although some improvements can be made, they will still not be able to fulfill the need for a comprehensive reference on bicycle and pedestrian planning and engineering. These improvements include the following: 0 incorporation of the AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities into the next edition of A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets to formalize and better distribute the information; 0 providing specific chapters each on pedestrian and bicycle transportation as is done with other modes, into the next ITE Transportation Planning Handbook; 0 improving the currently weak Pedestrian and Bicycle Chapters in the next Highway Capacity Manual; 0 development of bicycle facility warrants and signage standards for woonerf type areas in the Manual of Uniform Trafic Control Devices; and 0 revising the Uniform Vehicle Code and Model Trafic Ordinance to make stronger provision for auto-restricted and auto-prohibited areas.104