Traffic engineers are trained at university Schools of Engineering. The primary traffic engineering department for the State of Virginia- Virginia Tech- doesn’t offer a single second of instruction on non-motorized roadway design and usage. I suspect most other engineering schools are similar.
I bought my engineering degree from Virginia Tech in the 90s. Some of the coursework focus has changed, but you're directionally correct. You might be interested in this recent podcast conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNPXj7Zd9WE
Great article thanks I’ve always suspected the truth was something like and was good to have my “we need reeducation camps for traffic engineers” biases confirmed.
Not sure if you know anything about this but I’d love to see some scrutiny (or an article perhaps?) put on the traffic generation rates these engineers ascribe to new land uses.
So say a new apartment building is proposed, as part of a traffic study they predict that the building will generate X cars in order to predict their impact on the network.
These have always seemed incredibly arbitrary to me and I’ve always suspected they were based on very thin assumptions.
You know, I thought I'd written about how they decide the impact of development projects (the Trip Generation Manual), but I don't see it in my archives. I've got to get on that ASAP. Like most manuals, it has a logical origin story, but... I'll save the rest ;)
There are good tools/methods for evaluating safety & mobility for people walking, rolling, using the bus, etc. It comes down to priority, which is why planning rules are so infuriating. They have the opportunity to promote mode choice but they don't.
Traffic engineers are trained at university Schools of Engineering. The primary traffic engineering department for the State of Virginia- Virginia Tech- doesn’t offer a single second of instruction on non-motorized roadway design and usage. I suspect most other engineering schools are similar.
I bought my engineering degree from Virginia Tech in the 90s. Some of the coursework focus has changed, but you're directionally correct. You might be interested in this recent podcast conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNPXj7Zd9WE
Great article thanks I’ve always suspected the truth was something like and was good to have my “we need reeducation camps for traffic engineers” biases confirmed.
Not sure if you know anything about this but I’d love to see some scrutiny (or an article perhaps?) put on the traffic generation rates these engineers ascribe to new land uses.
So say a new apartment building is proposed, as part of a traffic study they predict that the building will generate X cars in order to predict their impact on the network.
These have always seemed incredibly arbitrary to me and I’ve always suspected they were based on very thin assumptions.
You know, I thought I'd written about how they decide the impact of development projects (the Trip Generation Manual), but I don't see it in my archives. I've got to get on that ASAP. Like most manuals, it has a logical origin story, but... I'll save the rest ;)
Yesss thank you!
There are good tools/methods for evaluating safety & mobility for people walking, rolling, using the bus, etc. It comes down to priority, which is why planning rules are so infuriating. They have the opportunity to promote mode choice but they don't.