This dissertation explores multiple stakeholders' perceptions with regard to administrative rules governing public participation in the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO) in Virginia. In 2007, the HRTPO received conditional certification during its quadrennial review with seven corrective actions related to public participation. Subsequently, it started to reform its public participation practices, and in 2012 it received full certification. This study explores how the HRTPO stakeholders perceive the administrative rules that govern public participation processes, more positively (as 'green tape') or more negatively (as 'red tape'), and how those perceptions have changed since 2007, relying on in-depth interviews as well as archival documents. Before 2007, top management officials had pessimistic perceptions of public participation in general and the rules in particular. The negative perceptions changed when new senior staff arrived in 2008 and initiated reforms, most notably by hiring a public involvement administrator. Acting as a transformative leader, this administrator began to adopt outreach programs, which stakeholders considered successful. By unpacking the notion of stakeholder red tape, guided by the attributes of stakeholder red tape and green tape, this study found that stakeholders perceived the rules more positively than they did in 2007. / Ph. D.

This dissertation addresses the development of optimization models for hospital evacuation logistics, as well as the analyses of various resource management strategies in terms of the equity of evacuation plans generated. We first formulate the evacuation transportation problem of a hospital as an integer programming model that minimizes the total evacuation risk consisting of the threat risk necessitating evacuation and the transportation risk experienced en route. Patients, categorized based on medical conditions and care requirements, are allocated to a limited fleet of vehicles with various medical capabilities and capacities to be transported to receiving beds, categorized much like patients, at the alternative facilities. We demonstrate structural properties of the underlying transportation network that enables the model to be used for both strategic planning and operational decision making. Next, we examine the resource management and equity issues that arise when multiple hospitals in a region are evacuated. The efficiency and equity of the allocation of resources, including a fleet of vehicles, receiving beds, and each hospital\'s loading capacity, determine the performance of the optimal evacuation plan. We develop an equity modeling framework, where we consider equity among evacuating hospitals and among patients. The range of equity of optimal solutions is investigated and properties of optimal and equitable solutions based on risk-based utility functions are analyzed. Finally, we study the integration of the transportation problem with the preceding hospital building evacuation. Since, in practice, the transportation plan depends on the pace of building evacuation, we develop a model that would generate the transportation plan subject to the output of hospital building evacuation. The optimal evacuation plans are analyzed with respect to resource utilization and patient prioritization schemes. Parametric analysis of the resource constraints is provided along with managerial insights into the assessment of evacuation requirements and resource allocation. In order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed models, computational results are provided using case studies with real data obtained from the second largest hospital in Virginia. / Ph. D.

The methodology to measure the performance of urban streets was significantly revised in the latest edition of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM 2010). Urban Streets, which include urban and suburban signalized arterial highways, typically serve the four modes of transportation (auto, transit, pedestrian and bicycle) and are frequently congested. Analyzing both recurrent and non-recurrent conditions is essential. In this dissertation, the author addressed several urban streets related issues by developing an alternative method to measure recurrent multimodal conditions on urban streets; gathering feedback relating to the key elements of the developed method; and developing a probabilistic method to analyze and measure non-recurrent conditions. Real life sample applications were performed for both developed methods. The developed multimodal method addresses the following: (1) the use of level of service (LOS) step functions; (2) the comparability of LOS results across modes; (3) the impacts of modes on other modes; (4) the establishment of thresholds; (5) accuracy; and (6) user perceptions in measuring multimodal conditions on urban streets. Feedback gathered from transportation professionals through focus group meetings and surveys supported most of the features of the developed multimodal method and provided default values for method application. They were divided on the naming of condition levels and on the number of condition levels to use. Non-recurrent conditions were addressed through the development of a Markovian probabilistic method to analyze and measure the resilience of congested, signalized, arterial highways, for which availability of existing analytical tools is limited. The method results provide a plexiform of information about the rate and speed of recovery of the arterial traffic flow. / Ph. D.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Hyung Jin Kim / A significant decline of mental and physical health exists within college students today (ACHA, 2014; Gallagher, 2006). Recently, to promote mental health, restorative landscapes have emerged as a trend in healthcare environments by formalizing the healing properties of nature within a designed environment. Humans have been shown to undergo a measurable relief of stress, improved attention, and an improved overall sense of well-being when exposed to a restorative landscape setting. Opportunities exist for university campuses to more advantageously employ the mental health benefits of restorative landscapes. Furthermore, to address physical health, the university campus holds unique opportunities to increase students’ physical activity through promotion of active lifestyles using active modes of transportation. Campus streets, based on their lack of affordances to promote mental and physical health as well as their inherent connectivity to key campus buildings and spaces are investigated as a site for a designed solution. A recent trend of campus street conversions to pedestrian malls is identified and explored as a tool to facilitate creation of a restorative and active campus. The project, based in two fundamental research questions, investigates how campus street design can improve the collective mental health of college students, and how campus street design can promote physical health. Literature review analysis reveals theories and principles of restorative landscape and campus design. The project unites these findings with case study analysis to form a framework to facilitate the design of restorative environments within a university campus. Pragmatic evidence of built environment interventions has been synthesized from literature review and case study analysis into an additional framework to increase physical activity through active transportation. Kansas State University’s campus has been identified as a suitable case for a design proposal. Planning and design decisions at three nested scales are made to illustrate how the frameworks may be applied to reclaim a campus street as an active and restorative “garden street.” In the context of declining mental and physical health among college students, the synthesis of principles related to restorative landscape design and active transportation presents a valuable structure to mitigate declining mental and physical health of students.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / John W. Keller / The purpose of this document is to use an existing transit system as the standard by which another community can model their own. It begins with the discussion of a brief history of mass transit in the United States—focusing on the detail that competing automobile manufacturers began the demise of transit ridership in this nation. As the 1950s came to a close, the nation’s transit systems saw the peak of ridership. However, the post-war era brought about massive suburbanization and more automobiles per household. The American no longer needed to ride transit, except for those still living in the dense urban cores of cities like New York City. The document moves into the discussion of the fundamentals of mass transit. It explains the importance of population base, ridership, and funding. Depending on the type of system, a minimum population base is recommended in order to support the proper system. Ridership is a key focus of transit, for without it, a community is just wasting resources. Finally, funding is very important. No transit system can support itself on fares alone and still remain a viable alternative to the automobile. Transit systems must procure funding from a variety of sources including all levels of government in order to obtain sufficient revenue to operate successfully. The heart of the document focuses on the CyRide bus system in Ames, Iowa—serving the Ames community and Iowa State University since 1976. CyRide is a special system in that it serves a total population of only 54,000, but sees an annual ridership of 5 million. Their success is based on a longstanding relationship with the community complimented by staff that posses the passion to ensure the highest quality service day-in and day-out. This report discusses the fine details of how that system functions on all levels. The document concludes with the discussion of Manhattan, Kansas—a city with approximately the same population as Ames, and is home to Kansas State University, which as approximately the same student enrollment as Iowa State. Manhattan currently does not have a transit system, but is seeking to implement one in the coming years. The overall intent of this report is to draw conclusions based on the performance of CyRide and provide recommendations to the City of Manhattan regarding the implementation and operation of a transit system.

Federal, state and local laws entitle the public to have an active role in the transportation decision making process. However, it remains difficult to engage the public in the long range planning process. The laws requiring public involvement are intentionally vague and don’t prescribe specific approaches, so there is little consistency in public participation approaches and many state, regional, and local transportation agencies choose to do only what is necessary to meet minimum requirements (PBS&J, 2009). The purpose of this study is to examine public participation in transportation planning with specific focus on how the characteristics of public participation, the level of engagement, and deliberation affect the extent to which transportation planning decisions are reflective of public input received. A quantitatively driven mixed methods study was completed in three phases using secondary data, exclusively. Phase I included a review of each Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and a study of the public involvement procedures that were used to develop each MPO’s Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP). Phase II focused on the input that was gathered by each MPO for public participation activities conducted during the development of the MTP. In Phase III, the results of Phases I and II were used to conduct a cross tabulation analysis to determine if there was a relationship between the characteristics of public participation, the level of engagement of participation, and the use of deliberation, and the degree to which public input was reflected in the MTP. The findings of this study indicate support for literature based in levels of engagement and the use of deliberation. Despite the design of the participation plan, transportation decisions reflect public input more often when MPOs have broad outreach to the public, higher levels of engagement, and use deliberative public participation techniques. Implications for policy and practice, and recommendations for future research are discussed.