[passcoalition] Re: revised proposal for modification to the prioritization tool
- From: Gene Bourquin DHA <oandmhk@xxxxxxx>
- To: PASS listserv <passcoalition@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:08:42 -0500
Leading protected left-turn phases are awarded 3 point.
I do not know of any leading turn signals in NYC but there may be some around
town.
Gene
Dr. Eugene
A Bourquin
_____________________________
DHA, COMS, CI & CT,
CLVT
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Go to www.FRIENDSofFUNDAL.org
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From: kgourgey@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: passcoalition@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [passcoalition] Re: revised proposal for modification to the
prioritization tool
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:40:06 -0500
Hi Gene, Annalyn and All,
This is quite a brilliant piece of work. Beginning
with Lester’s very clever idea to do prioritizations within each community
board right down through the recommended scoring changes. You’ve very
adroitly snuck in the other issues such as DW’s without ever losing focus
on the APS’s as was Matt’s request. There are a couple of copy
edit things to fix, but other than that, I think this should go to Matt. if
I had one concern, it was someone in an outer borough, making a request for a n
aps and that request being worth only one point. No doubt, in most cases,
there would be other aspects of the intersection that would warrant and receive
points.
I don’t remember, but in the original
tool, do leading turns get points? (Hope I’ve used the right term; I
mean those turns that happen at the beginning of the walk signal.) And also,
does the presence of LPI’s get a point value?
That’s it for this post, one more coming
up, smile.
Karen
From:
passcoalition-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:passcoalition-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Gene Bourquin DHA
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2011
8:18 AM
To: PASS listserv
Subject: [passcoalition] revised
proposal for modification to the prioritization tool
Dear colleagues,
Annalyn and I met the other evening and reviewed each
category in the prioritization tool. We revised and fine tuned my
original draft proposal based on our experiences and the input from
other coalition members. I am posting the results of our efforts.
Everyone's input is needed and valuable, and Annalyn and I really want to
get more input before we meet with the MOPD and DoT again. You can make
public comments or ask questions here on the listserv, or contact us off the
list by email. Thanks! Here is the current proposal.
The APS prioritization tool should reflect the uni nature of New York City,
especially in Manhattan,
Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. The
prioritization should reflect the character of these urban environments more
consistently and weigh the factors differently when considering APS
installations. We prefer that there be a focus on citizens who are blind who
are living and working in New York
City. In our city there are so many attractions,
multiple public transit lines, and facilities for people with visual
impairments, that these features may not be considered as critically unique
when considering where APS will be most needed and used. Meanwhile, major
new construction around the City has created new risks and a need for
information about signaling.
The 59 existing community board districts in the boroughs define
well-established neighborhoods. The Department of Transportation has
traditionally worked with these entities and these boards often have valuable
input on transportation and street geometry issues. Prioritization of
installations for APS would not begin to make the entire city accessible for
blind and low vision pedestrians if we were to prioritize on a city-wide
basis. Therefore we suggest that prioritization happen within the
boarders established by community boards, where the needs of neighborhoods may
be fairly ranked by the object measurements of the prioritization
tool(s). The results would be that the crosswalks in each neighborhood
which need APS would receive the most timely consideration.
The current tool appears to be well-suited for Staten
Island, but for the other boroughs we recommend the following
modification be made to the tool:
Geometrics:
Change item:
Islands or medians: 5
points
Rationale: Islands and medians
at newly constructed bicycle lanes create risks throughout the boroughs.
Properly located APS along with appropriate detectable warning surfaces (DWS)
can improve the safety of segmented crosswalks.
Consider these added categories:
Painted or delineated bulb-outs: 8
Rationale: Establishing shorter crossing lengths at many
crosswalks is being accomplished by painted and bollard-delineated
bulb-outs. Blind pedestrians have no way to know where to stand.
Properly located APS and surface treatments (DWS) can make these crossing
accessible.
Transit facilities nearby:
Change entire category to:
None 0
Major transportation intersections and hubs: 6
Rationale: Train and bus routes are ubiquitous in the City.
The tool would be improved by assigning weight to intersections where four or
more bus and/or train routes come together, or where major transportation
hubs such as the Port Authority, Jamaica
Center, Futon Terminal, and
other such facilities are located.
Distance to visually impaired facility:
Consider: within 300 feet: 5
650
3
1300 2
Rationale: While nearness to a blindness facility might merit
some added consideration, most New
York citizens who are blind have a need to travel
throughout the City. Traveling near a blindness facility should be
weighted less important in our dense urban environ.
Distance to major attraction
Replace scoring with:
Consider: within 300 feet: 4
650
3
1300 1
Rationale: Major attractions are found throughout New York in all the
boroughs. We propose that nearness to an attraction should be weighed
with a moderate score.
Distance to alternate APS:
Replace all items with
Greater than 300 feet: 3
Rationale: most of the 15,000 intersections under consideration will
not be near an existing alternate APS. We think that the factor should be
weighed moderately.
Requests for APS
Consider replacing all scoring with:
None: 0
One 2
Two to six 3
More than six 4
Rationale: In a densely populated urban location, multiple
requests for an APS is better weighted by providing a slight advantage over a
single request for an APS. In less populated areas we would not want
individual requests to be at a sever disadvantage. Therefore we suggest
the above scoring.
Other related posts:
