Center for Transportation Research News

Editor Note: As an update to the passage of the Master Bike Plan, Annick Beaudet, the Bicycle Program Manager with the City of Austin in Department of Public Works, has provided this update on the implementation of the plan.

Colored bike lane on Dean Keaton East of IH 35.

It is my pleasure to write about my experience riding the new facilities recently installed as part of the City’s experimental bicycle facility study, in process and in partnership with the University of Texas Center for Transportation Research.

This past Sunday I headed out on an urban tour of many of our new bike lanes and of the new, experimental facilities.  I’ll note that two of my fellow riders were beginner riders, so it was a perfect opportunity for direct input on how new bicyclists would react to both the new bike lanes and the other facilities.

Read more…

 http://austinontwowheels.org/2009/11/19/…

From the National Academies, technical presentation on hot mix asphalt.

More details at http://TRB.org/SHRP2 This video shows a demonstration of an infrared bar being used for quality control and measurement of new hot mix asphalt layers during paving operations. This demonstration was part of Renewal Project R06C: Using Both Infrared and High-Speed Ground Penetrating Radar for Uniformity Measurement on New Hot Mix Asphalt Layers. This project is demonstrating these technologies to assess hot mix asphalt density and segregation in the four AASHTO regions, and will recommend how these technologies can be incorporated into existing department of transportation specifications for construction quality assurance.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cem6Qx810…

<img src=”http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/dotfhwa.gif”>

The Federal Highway Administration posted its October Transportation and Climate Change Newsletter. It contains the latest news in this area of policy and study.

• U.S. DOE and U.S. EPA announce the 2010 Fuel Economy Guide for model year 2010 vehicles.
• World Resources Institute issues provisional GHG emissions reporting standard for public sector
• EESI publishes State Actions on Climate Change: A Focus on How Our Communities Grow
• Simple Measures Can Yield Big GHG Cuts, Scientists Say in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Managing Our Coastal Zone in a Changing Climate: The Time to Act is Now Issued by the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Provides Insights Relevant to U.S.

… and more news. (all these links depart from the FHWA main Web page. Some are HTML and some may be PDF files.)

 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/hep/climatechang…

View Video: http://www.kvue.com/v/?i=70265707

Austin’s new car sharing program, Car2Go, starts today. It is the first of its kind in the nation. During a six-month pilot program, city employees will have access to 200 Smart cars, which will be pre-positioned at parking spots around town. Austin city officials say it will offer a convenient, environmentally-friendly alternative to meet the needs of employees.

“It’s essentially a barter agreement with Car2Go. We’re providing some on street parking spots for their cars in exchange they are providing some cars for our employees to use for business use,” said Karla Villalon, City of Austin transportation department.

“(We’re feeling) very excited. We’ve been waiting for this day for almost 12 months now since we first approached the city,” said Nick Cole, CEO of North America Car2Go.
The pilot program will last about six months before officials decide whether to expand the program to the general public.
Car2Go is hopeful. The company has launched its car sharing program in Germany. Austin is the second city and the only one in the U.S. with the Car2Go vehicles.
“A large scale car sharing program also is a way to get more cars off the road. Car sharing is especially good for those people who don’t need a car everyday but need a car occasionally,” said Villalon.
If it’s approved for the general public, the car sharing program will likely work the same in Austin as in Germany. Whenever a car is needed, drivers can go by the Car2Go office and rent a vehicle or pre-book one online or by phone.

Car-sharing is not new to Austin. A non-profit called Austin CarShare launched in 2006. About 300 subscribers have access to seven vehicles using a time-share system in which users sign up in advance and pay per hour.
Austin CarShare founder Brandi Clark said she sees car2go as a positive investment for the city, not a threat to her existing company. Because the two offer different rate plans, and since Austin CarShare has six four-door vehicles and a pick-up truck, Clark said the two could work as complements to each other.
“We hope it will increase participation in all car-sharing,” she said. “Car2go can do what we could only dream of doing by adding hundreds of car-sharing vehicles all over Austin. Not everyone who uses those cars will always want to use a two-seater. Perhaps, ironically, Austin CarShare, which chose fuel efficient vehicles to begin with, will become the ‘big car’ option.”

Read more at:
FOX News in Austin:
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/local/111709-Car-Sharing-Program-Starts-in-Austin
Full Press Release on Car2Go for Austin (on FoxBusiness):
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/industrials/cargo-austin—demand-mobility/
KVUE News story and video:
http://www.kvue.com/news/Car-Sharing-Program-Launches-in-Austin-70265707.html
Read about Car2Go at UT’s Daily Texan Student Newspaper:
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/top-stories/city-launches-car2go-program-with-compact-smart-vehicles-1.2086975

Dr. C. Michael Walton, professor of civil engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, received the Texas Road Hand Award from the Texas Department of Transportation for his public spirit in championing transportation projects. The award recognizes citizens who have given their time, energy and vision to help improve transportation throughout the state.

Walton holds the Ernest H. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering.

Amadeo Saenz, Executive Director of TXDOT made the surprise “Road Hand Award” presentation to C. Michael Walton on 11/13/09. From his speech at the event:

In the early days of the 20th century, anyone who helped build roads was called a Road Hand. Today’s Road Hands are citizens who have given their time, energy and vision to help improve transportation throughout the state. In bestowing this award, the Texas Department of Transportation recognizes our friends who have helped build one of the best transportation systems in the world. Luther DeBerry, a former State Highway Engineer, created the Road Hand award in 1973 as the highest tribute to public-spirited citizens who championed transportation projects in their community. We extend this heartfelt gesture to these outstanding volunteers with deep appreciation for their commitment and dedication.

The award has become an honored TxDOT tradition to acknowledge those who have made improvements to Texas transportation a labor of love. The names of Road Hand award recipients are inscribed on the Road Hand Hall of Honor plaque which hangs prominently in the foyer of the historic Dewitt C. Greer Highway Building in Austin.

Texans may soon be paying more at the pump. To help generate money for new roads in Texas, some lawmakers are pushing for the first gas tax increase since 1991.

“We are in the critical position in this state where we are growing and will need more roads. But we have no money to build them and no more debt that we can issue,” the committee’s chairman, Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, said during a meeting in El Paso.

The current state fuel tax is 20 cents a gallon.

According to a report published earlier this year by the consulting firm of Cambridge Systematics, Texas will be $256 billion short of meeting its transportation needs by 2050 if current funding formulas remain unchanged.

Read more at http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_13757985
and http://www.kvue.com/news/local/Some-Lawmakers-Say-Its-Time-To-Increase-The-States-Gas-Tax-69925992.html

View Youtube Video

September 30, 2009 - Michael Ramage, former executive vice president of ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, and James Sweeney, professor of economics at Stanford University, discuss the conclusions of the National Academy of Sciences report entitled America’s Energy Future with a focus on the sections dealing with liquid transportation fuels.

Stanford University
http://www.stanford.edu

ExxonMobil Energy Resources Engineering
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/energy.aspx

Stanford University Channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/stanford

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlwNNtteMSU

Following the successful launch of the new mobility concept car2go in Europe (in the City of Ulm, Germany), car2go and the City of Austin, Texas will launch the first North American pilot program for car2go on November 17th. car2go is a new, sustainable mobility concept from Daimler which redefines individual transportation in congested areas. For the first time in North America, participants of the pilot program can use smart fortwo vehicles everywhere within the city-limits of Austin on a 24/7 basis.

Questions about the upcoming launch event or car2go? Please contact Ms. Julia Engelhardt, Manager Corporate Communications for Daimler and smart, in the New York office: phone 212 909 9062, email: julia.engelhardt@daimler.com

For another blog post on car2go, see: http://blogs.utexas.edu/ctr/2009/09/01/car2go-headed-to-austin/

The City of Austin is testing four bicycle safety improvements with research involvement of the Center for Transportation Research. KVUE News in Austin covers “sharrows” in a news segment today; the video is posted online.

http://www.kvue.com/news/Austin-part-of-bike-and-car-sharing-experiment-68806662.html

Anyone driving, walking or cycling down Guadalupe between MLK and 4th street Monday may have seen them being installed and wondered what they were.

City employees from the Austin Public Works department spent the better part of Monday installing sixteen, 3 by 2 foot symbols of a man on a bicycle into traffic lanes called “Sharrows”.

The lanes are to be shared between cars and cyclists, but neither the city of Austin nor the U.T. Center for Transportation Research will go into the details of how they’re supposed to work because the “Sharrows” are part of a nationwide experiment.

The U.S. Department of Transportation chose Austin as one of six cities across the country to try out the “Sharrows” to see if drivers and cyclists can figure out on their own how they work. The city of Austin and U.T. have installed cameras in strategic areas of the”Sharrows” to collect video to be shared with the federal government to see whether or not the “Sharrows” are working.

“This device was first used in San Francisco and it’s part of a research project and ongoing data collection to see how these devices function in the field”, said Jason Wilkes an employee with the City of Austin’s Public Works Department.

70 “Sharrows” are expected to be installed across the city by the end of the week according to Wilkes.

“We put 16 in today, it was our first day working. We’re putting them in on Guadalupe, Lavaca, on Dean Keeton next to the lanes that we already put in earlier this year and then up on 51st street”, said Wilkes.

The “Sharrows” are just one of four bicycle safety improvements the city of Austin is spending $97,000 on in the next six months.

http://www.kvue.com/news/Austin-part-of-bike-and-car-sharing-experiment-68806662.html

Stolen and vandalized rental bikes challenge a system designed to reduce congestion in France.

Vélib’, Paris’s bicycle rental system, inspired a new urban ethos for the era of climate change.

Renters of Vélib’ bicycles in Paris say it can be a challenge to find functioning ones among those that have been vandalized. In Paris 80 percent of Vélib’ bicycles are stolen or damaged.

Residents here can rent a sturdy bicycle from hundreds of public stations and pedal to their destinations, an inexpensive, healthy and low-carbon alternative to hopping in a car or bus.

But this latest French utopia has met a prosaic reality: Many of the specially designed bikes, which cost $3,500 each, are showing up on black markets in Eastern Europe and northern Africa. Many others are being spirited away for urban joy rides, then ditched by roadsides, their wheels bent and tires stripped.

With 80 percent of the initial 20,600 bicycles stolen or damaged, the program’s organizers have had to hire several hundred people just to fix them. And along with the dent in the city-subsidized budget has been a blow to the Parisian psyche.

“The symbol of a fixed-up, eco-friendly city has become a new source for criminality,” Le Monde mourned in an editorial over the summer. “The Vélib’ was aimed at civilizing city travel. It has increased incivilities.”

The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or “bourgeois-bohèmes,” the trendy urban middle class, and they stir resentment and covetousness. They are often being vandalized in a socially divided Paris by resentful, angry or anarchic youth, the police and sociologists say.

Bruno Marzloff, a sociologist who specializes in transportation, said, “One must relate this to other incivilities, and especially the burning of cars,” referring to gangs of immigrant youths burning cars during riots in the suburbs in 2005.

He said he believed there was social revolt behind Vélib’ vandalism, especially for suburban residents, many of them poor immigrants who feel excluded from the glamorous side of Paris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/europe/31bikes.html?_r=1&th&emc=th