The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has supported the construction of many SUPs, in coordination with local governments within the state, since the 1970’s. With the creation of a data-driven process to prioritize transportation projects that began in 2013 and continues to evolve, independent bicycle and pedestrian projects such as SUPs are now evaluated, ranked, and compete with projects from all transportation modes. This objective, performance based prioritization process currently uses travel time savings and safety benefits based on crash history as the economic criteria, but these metrics fall short in fully accounting for the range of potential economic benefits of bicycle or pedestrian projects.
