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Sub-problem 1c - Page 1 of 4 Sub-problem 1c: Analysis of the Signal with Pedestrians and Bicycles As we noted in the TWSC portion of our analysis, pedestrians can have a significant effect on delay. We can see how pedestrians (and bicycles assumed at 10% of pedestrians) affect our signalized intersection by making an additional run without the pedestrians and bikes present to facilitate the comparison below:
It is obvious that the effects of pedestrians and bicycles on this intersection are significant, almost doubling queues for the southbound right turns and increasing the delay by about 35% (106 sec/veh to 162 sec/veh) across the overall intersection. This occurs due to adjustments to the saturation flow rates to account for the effects of pedestrians and bicycles on the conflicting vehicular movements, which is new in HCM2000 and described in Chapter 16, Appendix D. In this analysis, adjustments are significant, especially for the southbound right turns where the flow rate was reduced by 40%; but all movements had adjustment factors lower than 1.00. With this level of effect on flow rate, and subsequently capacity and delay, strategies to reduce this effect would be reasonable to pursue. Testing an alternative that requires pedestrians to cross on only two of the four approaches might make sense here. Strategically, this can be orchestrated to benefit the right turns that need it most. From a practical viewpoint, we know the predominant pedestrian flow is from the southwest (student parking) to the northeast (classes) and the reverse. Because the right turns are heaviest (by far, which makes this alternative worth considering) in the southbound and westbound vehicular movements, we can consider closing the crosswalks on the western and northern legs of the intersection. The pedestrian and bicycle flow rates for the closed crosswalks have to be added to those left open. Discussion: |