Local Access Scores

Tim Reardon

Director of Data Services

Metropolitan Area Planning Council

A New Measure of Network Utility

for Complete Streets Planning and Implementation

Transportation Research Board 2017Session 616

Use of Statewide Systems and Data for

Project Planning, Selection, and Prioritization

January 10, 2017

Massachusetts Complete

Streets Funding Program

How can we prioritize efforts?

How can we measure success?

$100 million authorized by legislature over

five years; $12.5M in FY16 & FY17

What inputs do local governments use

when determining where to build

sidewalks and bike facilities?

77% of Massachusetts roadways

lack sidewalks:

35,000 miles of incomplete streets

Constituent Requests

Ad hoc

School Administrators

Local Committee

Prioritization plans

need prioritization criteria

Speed

Crashes

Feasibility & Cost

Demographics

ADA compliance

Field Surveys

What about utility?

Is Proximity Paramount?

Which streets and roads

are likely to have the

greatest utility

for pedestrians and cyclists

traveling to local destinations,

if safe and complete streets

were available?

Introducing…

Active Transportation Network Utility

Trip Production & DistributionTrip Purpose Trip Generation rates

based on…

Trip Attraction rates

based on…

Shopping, Services,

Restaurants

Household size

(Census 2010)

Restaurant & Retail

Employees (InfoGroup)

School Population age 5 to 17

(Census 2010)

School Enrollment

(MA DESE)

Transit Household size

(Census 2010)

Transit Frequency (EPA

Smart Location Database)

Outdoor Recreation Household Size

(Census 2010)

Acres of Open Space

(MassGIS)

• All production & attraction takes place at census block level

• Production and attraction rates based on analysis of 2011

Massachusetts Household Travel Survey (MTS)

• Doubly-constrained gravity models with input impedance based on

distance skim of network, calibrated to MTS data

• School commute trips cannot cross district boundaries

Mode Choice

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Perc

ent

of

Trip

s

Trip Length (Miles)

Active Transportation Mode Share: Home-Based Retail & Restaurant Trips

Bike

Walk

Source: Massachusetts Travel Survey, 2011; MAPC Analysis

• Multinomial logit model for each trip purpose: walk, bike, other

• Input variables include distance, WalkScore™ at origin & destination

• Main effect is to divert long trips away from walking & biking

Assignment & Composite Scores• Network includes all surface streets and mapped off-road facilities, excludes limited

access highways

• Trips assigned to minimize distance; no built environment or P/BLOS impedance

measures used

• Eight trip purpose/mode scores produced:

• Walk to shopping/restaurants

• Bike to shopping/restaurants

• Walk to school

• Bike to school

• Walk to outdoor recreation

• Bike to outdoor recreation

• Walk to transit

• Bike to transit

• Raw trip estimates rescaled to a value of 1 – 100, weighted, and combined to

create composite scores:

• Composite walk utility score

• Composite bike utility score

• Overall utility score

• Results produced for 154,000 census blocks containing 2.5 million households, with

scores available for 49,000 local roadway miles across Masschusetts

Local Access Score:

Walk to Shops and Restaurants

Local Access Score:

Bike to Shops and Restaurants

Local Access Score:

Composite

Local Access Score: Applications

Pedestrian Prioritization Plans• MAPC-produced plans based on Local Access secured $1.2

million capital funds in first round of state grants

Capital Investments

Wayfinding

Pedestrian and Bicycle Counts

Maintenance and Enforcement

ADA Assessments

Local Access Score:

Crash Overlay

High-Utility road segment

connects residential areas,

schools, & downtown, but

lacks sidewalks

Local Access Score:

Sidewalk Gap Analysis

Desire Lines:

the best indicator of

sidewalk need

localaccess.mapc.org

Interactive map

Data download

User Guide

Technical Documentation

Average > 100 users per week

Visits from 127

cities and towns

across MA

>60 dataset downloads

Since launching localaccess.mapc.org:

Connectivity errors in the source data

Informal or unmapped walking routes missing

Travel around/within blocks nor represented

School trips assume proximity-based assignment

Transit trips hard to estimate

Not all trip types represented

Pedestrian Infrastructure Isn’t Perfect

and Neither are We…

Tim Reardon, Director of Data Services

Metropolitan Area Planning Council

treardon@mapc.org

data.mapc.org

localaccess.mapc.org

With funding support from:

In collaboration with:

Massachusetts Community

Innovation Challenge

Grant Program