Carmody, John C.

The post occupancy evaluation (POE) of the Minnesota Department of Transportation's (Mn/DOT) St. Cloud District Headquarters Building focuses on a number of building-related and organization-related issues. To address Mn/DOT goals, a POE process objectively assesses the following: Building performance in light of occupant needs and wants; Client satisfaction with Facilities Management Staff. The purpose of the POE was to identify strengths and weaknesses in the building delivery process. The expectation is that the information generated by the POE will strengthen the services rendered by Facilities Management and consequently facilitate the delivery of high performance, cost effective buildings for Mn/DOT.

This report details a project to study the relationship between highway design and human behavior as influenced by roadside environments. In a visualization phase, computer simulation modeled an actual segment of urban highway planned for reconstruction in Tofte, Minn. Using a driving simulator, project design team members test drove the highway reconstruction project and evaluated the planned elements. In an experimentation phase, researchers tested drivers' responses to different design scenarios to identify the architectural and aesthetic elements with the greatest potential for calming or slowing traffic. Results indicated that the visualization phase increased communication among project team members and state agencies, facilitated problem identification-resolution strategy development, and contributed to decision making concerning potential design options and design elements. Data also indicated that white pavement treatments produced desirable traffic calming effects. Analyses of drivers' speed patterns indicated a consistent speed profile, characterized by both decreases and increases in speed. The report concludes with recommendations for the expanded use of visualization in general, and the implementation of white pavement treatments in the target reconstruction project specifically. It also recommends further consideration of landscape architecture treatments

In pursuit of unimpeded high peak traffic flow, the "Design Guidelines for Super Two Highways" (Ekem, 1998) suggested several treatments for the right side of the roadway. But the left side is where drivers experience great speed differentials between their own vehicles and oncoming traffic. The authors examined centerline treatments and possible recommendations for Super Two guidelines. The current US standard (12-ft lane/4-in. dashes) was compared with combinations of wider lanes, wider dashes, and buffer areas. With each of the centerline treatments examined, participants kept the left side of the vehicle in the approximate center of the lane. All treatments resulted in shifting the center of the lane farther from the centerline than it was in the standard condition. Two conditions appear to be most effective in keeping drivers away from the centerline: 1) 14-ft lanes with both longitudinal rumble strips and 4-in.-wide dashes marking the centerline, and 2) 12-ft lanes with 4-ft buffer marked by 4-in.-wide dashes. However, implementing any of the centerline treatments should result in vehicles driving farther from the centerline, thus making it less likely that drivers will meet an oncoming vehicle. Data were gathered in a driving simulator. Further testing should be conducted in real driving situations.

In this project, researchers investigated whether the results obtained in a before-and-after traffic calming experiment conducted in a driver simulator paralleled a real world before-and-after traffic calming study. The project also involved determining whether or not targeted traffic calming strategies resulted in reduced driving speeds. The report details the results of two simulator experiments on traffic calming. The first experiment examined traffic calming devices already installed on the stretch of Franklin Avenue between Chicago Avenue and Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis. A parallel before-and-after study occurred on the actual roadway. The second experiment examined the effects on driver speed of adding median islands, chokers, and plantings in a residential environment. Taken together, the two experiments show that the use of median islands, chokers, and plantings are likely to produce measurable reductions in traffic speed. The report recommends further research to discover how the specific placement or spacing of traffic calming elements would affect traffic speed. Further, the results obtained with the driving simulator parallel the direction of results obtained in the real world study of the urban environment of Franklin Avenue.