Book Description

Many jursidictions in Florida are moving toward multimodal transportation systems that provide users with viable travel options in an effort to minimize the economic, social, and enviornmental costs that have been associated with a purely vehicular system. To support this transition, a set of performance measures is needed that will supplement the vehicle-based Level of Service (LOS) that has been the primary tool within project impact analysis. This project developed a framework for assisting agencies in selecting a set of performance measures that are consistent with their overall goals and the quality of life that the community desires. An extensive list of performance measures was synthesized from the literature and categorized into groups according to several typical community and agency goals that they may support. Since there are numerous performance measures that can support each goal, several evaluation criteria were listed that can be used by a local agency to assess each measure in light of the agency’s goals, policies, and resources. These criteria consider the type and quality of data available to the agency, the compatibility of the measures with other agency processes, as well as the degree to which a measure encourages multimodal transportation. The report provides an example of how an agency could apply these criteria in order to select performance measures consistent with its goals and capabilities. The review systems for four Florida communities that have implemented successful multimodal areas are described in terms of their comprehensive plan, land development code, and project impact review. Land use mix and pedestrian environment measures were strongly favored by the communities documented in these system-level case studies, with multimodal choice strongly prioritized over congestion management. Finally, two development scenarios are created and studied using several performance measures to compare how different land use form affects the calculation of performance measures. A comparison of the impact is made based on whether measures support congestion management or mobility choice. The two development scenarios yield similar results when using congestion management as the primary agency objective, but show significant differences in their ability to support multimodal systems.