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Title:

Exploring Traffic Safety and Urban Form in Portland, Oregon

Accession Number:

01373476

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States
Order URL: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/168551.aspx

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Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780309263177

Abstract:

Urban form affects community development, livability, sustainability, and traffic safety. Urban planners have long assumed a relationship between urban form and traffic safety. That relationship favors designs with fewer through streets because such designs are believed to improve safety. An empirical study to explore this assumed relationship used crash data and an extensive resource of other data to define the urban form. Total reported crashes (21,492) within the city limits of Portland, Oregon, from 2005 to 2007 were aggregated by using a uniform 0.1-mi grid for the spatial unit (n = 792 cells); the crashes were modeled by using negative binomial regression to study the effect of urban form, which was defined by variables that captured street layout, exposure, connectivity, transit accessibility, demographics, and trip making (origins and destinations). These relationships were modeled separately by mode (vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle crashes), by crash type, and by severity of crash injury. The models found that urban-form variables of street connectivity and intersection density were not significant at the 95% confidence level for vehicle and pedestrian crashes or for different levels of crash severity, in contrast to results in earlier studies. Elasticity estimates for all models were dominated by increases in vehicle miles traveled. Business density, population, and transit stops were significant variables in many models; these results underlined the importance of the design and planning of streets in determining where growth in businesses, employment, and housing will occur so that added traffic volumes can be handled safely.

Monograph Accession #:

01472277

Report/Paper Numbers:

12-2148

Language:

English

Authors:

Gladhill, Kristie
Monsere, Christopher M

Pagination:

pp 63–74

Publication Date:

2012

Serial:

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Issue Number: 2318
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981

ISBN:

9780309263177

Media Type:

Print

Features:

Figures; References; Tables

Uncontrolled Terms:

Geographic Terms:

Subject Areas:

Design; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; I20: Design and Planning of Transport Infrastructure; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Feb 8 2012 5:08PM

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