This paper looks at alternatives for promoting and strengthening multimodal transportation in rural and small urban areas. It outlines 65 different innovative activities around the United States that have been undertaken to promote multimodalism in rural areas and smaller towns. These activities are grouped into six categories: improving transit options; accommodating alternative vehicles; supporting pedestrian and bicycle travel; multimodal land use planning; the use of financial incentives to promote multimodal land use development; and other alternatives that do not fit in these five categories. From this, six case studies have been developed. These case studies include retrofitting sidewalks in Olympia Washington: the network of interurban transit options in North Dakota; providing mileage reimbursement for seniors arranging their own rides in Mesa Arizona; the State of Oregon's "Main Street as a Highway" guidance for integrating highways into the fabric of smaller towns; the use to transportation impact fees to fund transportation infrastructure, including concurrency fees, development fees and special district fees; and a "Complete Streets" project in Clinton, Iowa.
Human beings are creatures of habit. Traveling patterns are routines that we repeat over and over until something disrupts those patterns. When disruption occurs, there is an opportunity to entice travelers into new travel patterns. Surveys found that the highway construction in Duluth disrupted travel patterns for 40% of persons surveyed. During the Duluth Megaproject highway construction project, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and the Duluth Transit Authority (DTA) used the opportunity entice travelers to transit. Additional trips and park and rides were added, which made transit more attractive to more travelers. Also, dedicated bus lanes were added to reduce travel time. Free fares enticed travelers to transit. A large promotional effort was undertaken to let travelers know about these enhanced options. Surveys of transit riders found that all of these efforts helped attract riders to transit. Surveys also looked at what factors were important for keeping riders on transit after highway construction ended. Once new habits are formed, it is likely travelers continue those habits until another event forces them to examine their travel patterns. This research found less than 15% of transit riders changed their behavior within two years and all did due to life changes, primarily job change or finishing school. It appears that once travelers change to transit, riders continue to use transit as long as it is a reasonable option. Increasing fares to normal levels did not create a significant incentive to stop using transit.
This research reports on whether and how other states gather and analyze data or estimate mode share for travel statewide. This research found that many states do not provide information on current bicycle and pedestrian mode share.
This report looks at how state DOTs and regional-level Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) coordinate funding estimates for long-range plans. It looks at whether state DOTs are directive about the funding estimates used by MPOs in their long-term plans and if so, how they do this. It also looks at how MPOs accommodate uncertainty in their funding estimates. This study also looks at how MPOs select projects and how state DOTs interact in these processes.
