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Rethinking Level of Service

NACTO – Designing Cities

October 29, 2013

Tom Maguire

Assistant Commissioner

New York City Department of Transportation

Three Streets

Level of Service?

B! B!

B!

Intersection LOS is a measure of delay aggregated across a group of drivers under specific traffic conditions… so it’s good for evaluating engineering decisions:

• How well have I allocated signal time and phases at an intersection?

• How well have I allocated vehicle lanes among competing drivers?

Engineering or Planning?

Intersection LOS is a measure of delay aggregated across a group of drivers under specific traffic conditions… so it’s bad for evaluating planning decisions:

• How safe is this street?

• How well does this street work for pedestrians, bus riders, and cyclists?

• How well does this street work for all drivers?

Engineering or Planning?

Why do we use a metric suited to engineering individual intersections to plan entire streets, an even entire cities?

Engineering or Planning?

Our Metrics Must Evolve

Our Metrics Must Evolve

Mobility – Automobile

Safety

Access/Mobility – Multimodal

Public Health

Economic Development

Environmental Quality

Livability/Quality of Life

• Volumes (ATR, MTC, class’n) • Vehicular LOS (delay, V/C, etc)

METRICS

• Crash Total (all, by mode, etc) • Exposure (crashes/volume)

• Multimodal volumes & LOS • Curb/parking availability

• Minutes/physical activity/day • Rates of obesity, diabetes, etc

• # of businesses, employment • Retail sales, visitor spending

• Air quality, water quality • Urban heat island, energy

• User satisfaction • “Staying” activities, events

Crash reduction

Better metrics: For all users

West 181st Street,

Manhattan

Crash reduction

Better metrics: For all users

Transit ridership

Better metrics: For all users

First Avenue,

Manhattan

Transit ridership

Better metrics: For all users

Transit ridership

Better metrics: For all users

Economic benefits

Better metrics: For all users

Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn

Economic benefits

Better metrics: For all users

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Improvement Site

Neighborhood Comp's

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Accessibility

Better metrics: For drivers

Accessibility

Better metrics: For drivers

Reliability

Better metrics: For drivers

Fifth Avenue, Manhattan

Same street, same block, same peak, same day… which will you experience?

Reliability

Better metrics: For drivers

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Hour of the day

5th Avenue [49th St to 42nd St] Non-holiday weekdays | September - November 2011

Reliability

Better metrics: For drivers

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Hour of the day

5th Avenue [49th St to 42nd St] Non-holiday weekdays | September - November 2011

In rush hours, speeds are slow, but variability is very low (the “bad” days are not very different from the typical days)

Reliability

Better metrics: For drivers

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Hour of the day

5th Avenue [49th St to 42nd St] Non-holiday weekdays | September - November 2011

Mid-days are more variable at both high and low speed ends, but most days (25th-75th percentiles) stay within fairly tight bands.

Reliability

Better metrics: For drivers

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Time of Day

5th Avenue [49th St to 42nd St] – PM PEAK

Questions? Tom Maguire tmaguire@dot.nyc.gov