Hi all,
UC Berkeley, UCLA, California State University Sacramento
College campuses and their peripheries are mixed-use environments in which the academic center serves as the core and is surrounded by retail, entertainment, and high-density residential facilities. The result is a multi-modal environment with very high walking and biking in conjunction with high vehicle traffic, which increases the potential conflict between the different transportation modes and may create relatively high risk and discomfort for pedestrians and bicyclists. Our proposed study will provide a comparative analysis of pedestrian and bicycle safety in and around three different campuses with the explicit goal of identifying possible relationships between urban form and traffic characteristics of the micro-environment and the incidence of crashes. To accomplish this, we have chosen to focus on three different campuses: (i) University of California Berkeley; ii) University of California Los Angeles; and (iii) California State University Sacramento. Using approaches from public health, planning, engineering and urban design, we will examine crash data and urban form data from all three campuses and study the spatial and temporal distribution of pedestrian and bicycle crashes in each campus in order to identify whether characteristics of the built environment contribute to the incidence of pedestrian and bicycle crashes, and suggest design changes to improve pedestrian and cycling safety in these areas. Budget: $145,459