Adjunct faculty member Stephen Quick presented two research studies at PennDOT’s 2018 Research Symposium last week in Harrisburg. The first study, entitled “Corridor Guidelines” and completed in 2016, proposed statewide highway corridors as a new category of roadway types that combine multimodal and complete street functionality with traffic calming measures for optimal safety and traffic flow.
The second and upcoming study, an outgrowth of “Corridor Guidelines” and now in final review for funding by PennDOT, seeks to answer how the integration of multimodal policies with regional corridors will impact small towns and boroughs differently from urban and suburban corridors, whether there are political and multimunicipal options for strengthening the public’s voice in the planning process, and how these heavily-used regional highways should be designed to optimize safety for autonomous autos and trucks. The Remaking Cities Institute will team with the Heinz College, Quaker Valley Council of Governments, Beaver County Council of Governments, and Aurora Innovation, a Pittsburgh company specializing in advanced software for autonomous vehicles. Route 65 from Pittsburgh to Beaver County will be used for the case study.