Transportation Planner's Safety Desk Reference

Guide for Analysis of Corridor Management Policies and Practices

This guide includes a work plan for assessing local government land development and access management practices. It also addresses how to prepare a conceptual plan for implementing corridor management at the local level. The objective of this guide is to help state transportation agencies and local governments identify and overcome barriers to effective corridor access management in the land development process. It is also intended to strengthen state and local coordination in access and development permitting.

Kristine Williams, CUTR
Click here to view .pdf report (May 2007)

Interstate I-394 Business Impact Study

This study attempts to capture the economic climate along the corridor both before and after conversion to a freeway. A variety of macro and micro level indicators were used to take snapshots of the corridor’s economic health both before and after freeway conversion. Click here to view .pdf report (June 2007)

In Section 2.4 some of conclusions were:

• The economic impacts (mainly involving land development and business sales) of
  transportation projects have not been researched as extensively as the safety and operational
  impacts.
• The business impacts studies that have been performed in states such as Florida, Iowa,
  Kansas, and Texas have similarly concluded that businesspersons’ perceptions of the
  impacts of changes in access on their companies are almost always worse than the actual
  impacts as measured after the fact.
• Before and after studies of transportation projects involving changes in access indicate that
  such projects do not lead to significant increases in business failure rates.
• Research also indicates that businesses along and near access-managed corridors do not
  suffer inordinate retail sales losses. In fact, businesses along newly access-managed
  corridors in Iowa actually outperformed other businesses in their communities in terms of
  sales growth.
• Literature on the impacts of transportation accessibility on land values suggests that such
  impacts would be very difficult to demonstrate either in a positive or negative direction.
  Variables such as parcel size and the overall location of the parcel would appear to matter
  more.

Direct link to MnDOT Report http://www.olmweb.dot.state.mn.us/pdf/FINAL_I-394_Business_Impact_Study.pdf
Prepared by CH2M HILL and CTRE for MnDOT

2006 Domestic ScanVIEW SUMMARY REPORT In the fall of 2006, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) conducted a domestic access management scan tour. This document provides the results from the tour. FHWA funded the tour to focus attention on access management successes involving local jurisdictions. The scan tour provides good examples that demonstrate the role that local jurisdictions can play in coordinating their transportation planning, development review and permitting process, and comprehensive planning to achieve good access management outcomes.

The scan tour found that a major key to success with access management is a multi-disciplinary and multi-jurisdictional approach that brings engineering, transportation planning, and land use decision-making together. The three visits were to Dakota County , MN. , the “Gateway 1 Corridor” in ME., and the city of Brewer , ME.

County Highway 42 provides a good example of how Dakota County is implementing access management.

The primary function of CH 42 is to accommodate the movement of through traffic (traffic using CH 42 to get to destinations outside of the corridor). However, the high level of commercial development along the corridor has generated large traffic volumes that have raised concerns regarding travel speeds, intersection delays, and motorist safety.

The plan provided a blue print for access management showing where access would be approved, denied, and alternative access provided.

Gateway 1 is an innovative land use and transportation planning project for the Route 1 corridor, from Brunswick to Prospect, Maine , involving approximately 21 towns along a 100 mile corridor. With the careful implementation of access management practices, Maine is preserving quality of life by balancing community growth and local values with transportation needs. Gateway 1 is an extensive project for Maine , and one tool being used is the Memorandum of Understanding. This memorandum was created to solicit agreement from all 21 towns to work together to develop a comprehensive long-range plan, including access management. All 21 towns signed the memorandum and are actively working together to implement access management along the Gateway 1 Corridor as part of this plan.

The City of Brewer , ME’s access management program has taken action in promoting traffic flow along their main corridor by providing for alternative access for local business, requiring shared accesses between businesses, and taking other alternative approaches to reduce any back ups and improve safety on the local roads.

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10 Principles

Animation describing Access Management Principles Download the animation from this home page to use in your Powerpoint Presentation! The stand-alone executable file can be also run as a separate program.

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State Websites

Links to Access Management Materials from across the country click here

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