-RIDHIMA MEHROTRA | URSP 600 | RESEARCH
DESIGN | SPRING 2017
Department of URBAN STUDIES|Course Instructor: Ariel H. Bierbum
Introduction
Background
Stamp Student Union Station
Regents drive m-bike station,UMD, College Park;Photo credits: author
Building
Bike share stations are important units of a bike share, a key to success (Carlos, Gutierrez, & Latorre, 2012), which create an identity for the whole system.
What are the qualities of a well-used bike share station at the campus of UMD, College Park?
Which are the most well used and minimally used bike stations on campus based on their ridership and why? Does the built environment and biking infrastructure of the stations explain their usability? Does the spatial configuration of stations and its interaction with street network and other built environment features induce social activity around them? Does that explain any effect on station awareness and usage? How do the community feel about station locations and what are their preferences as a user regarding station quality and location?
Campus drive
Road, car park
Regents Drive Station
Metro bus stop
science Stamp Student Union
Stamp st.
Landscape Game alley, subway
bus stop Regents Car garage + DOTS
Service parking
The environmental observations revealed three important location themes: Station Visibility & connectivity: Spatial quality, enclosure, topography, visual barriers, pedestrian & vehicular traffic, social activity and land use diversity. Station quality: Infrastructure and maintenance with proper drainage. Safety: Spatial quality, lighting and sound in space. The interviews revealed similar observations: visibility, infrastructure specifically bike lanes while added some new themes: station network density, capacity, convenient technology, walkability and connectivity. The negative factors swaying station usability: Ignorance of the existing stations & prevelant wrong image of the bikeshare highlighting the absence of bikeshare ownership among University community. Finally, I devised descriptive and thematic codes (Saldana, 2009) from the literature, field observation and the interview transcripts which were then triangulated to develop a code matrix, see figure 3. Two major themes emerged with subsets of technology and location. Spatial configuration and landuse makes a location more ‘accessible’ while built environment and station network density makes the location more ‘convenient’.
CONVENIENCE
Mowatt Lane Station
Domain housing
Arch.
ACCESSIBILITY
TECHNOLOGY
Restaurants
Stadium
Rec well shop Union ln. garage
science
dr.
Campus drive
Arts aeronautics
Parking lot
Stadium dr. Stamp service entry
College Park has a plethora of student housing, shopping arenas around campus as well as a Metro station in its vicinity. Bike share program for the campus at College Park is a small step towards a sustainable transport planning approach. The advocacy of UMD community is essential for such a plan to accomplish. At present, no feasibility studies or any kind of research on bikeshare are found for UMD campus of College Park. Observed literature only discusses implementation strategies, case studies, issues, feasibility of campus bikeshare programs of other universities or reviews of existing literature on campus bikeshare (Betancourt, Chan, Horan, & Burch, 2014), (Urbana-Champaign, 2012). Fishman (2015) has indicated ‘convenience’ as an important factor in deciding the success of a Bikeshare plan which is directly linked with the quality and location of bikeshare stations. Bike use is vital for a University campus which requires research to increase its usability and efficiency, making planning and designing of bike stations a crucial step. By this research, I hope to contribute meaningfully to the campus to design better and strategic bikeshare stations to serve the college community better.
Research Question
Vision axis Green buffers Traffic flow m-bike station Side walk
Union ln.
Recently, bike share has gained momentum with many universities all around US. Bikeshare comes along with numerous benefits like easy mobility, health, safety, economy, environmental and social while enhancing the image of a campus. Not only it solves the problem of vehicular congestion on campus, it reduces one’s carbon footprints, hassle of bike maintenance and storage and instills a sense of civic pride (Nice Ride, 2015).
The study employs two kinds of qualitative methods. Environmental observation and participant observation (figure 1) I selected three stations: Regents drive, Mowatt lane and Stamp Student Union and based on their avg. monthly ridership i.e. high, median and low respectively. Source: Department of Transportation Services, UMD. Performed walk by and structured observations during noon, evening and night time and recorded them in form of plans, sections, sketches, photographs and short videos (Mehta, 2007). Recorded details like built infrastructure, lane widths, building setbacks, materials, design elements (NACTO, 2016) and spatial pattern and recorded stationary and social activities (Gehrke & Welch, 2017) and informal chats with people. Conducted a five-minute pedestrian and vehicular count at the junction to gauge a relative traffic density around the three stations (CTRE, 2002). Interviewing (recorded & transcribed) (figure 2) I set up two semi-structured individual formal interviews with a bike share user and a bike share planner, from the UMD community (Weiss, 1994, p. 17). Used digital & printed maps for projective interviewing.
Mowatt ln.
University of Maryland,College Park
Findings & Analysis
Methodology & Data Collection
Regents dr.
bIKESHARE STATIONS A study on m-bike
Huge green buffers
Building backyard
Plans Perspectives
Bikes & lanes Capacity Signage Street light #Stations Maintainence
Built environment & Network
Bike share STATION
Spatial configuration & Landuse
Enclosure Density Traffic/multimodal Mixed uses Walkability Activity
LOCATION
One way+ Slope downwards Intersection type: Multimodal: Bike-car Traffic: low: pedestrian, service vans, cars, bikes
Pedestrian Traffic flow in all directions Intersection type: 4-way stop Multimodal: Bike-bus-car Traffic: high:pedestrian, cars, busses, bikes
VISIBILITY Intersection type: roundabout-yield Multimodal: Bike-car Traffic: high cars, low: pedestrian, bikes,
Figure 1: Plans and perspective views of m-bike stations, findings from environmental observation showing enclosure, spatial pattern & traffic flow
“...there is one next to Stamp? Oh I didn’t park at that one but at Mckeldin just because I saw it on my way or something.” The user couldn’t locate the station for its destination. Visibile connecton is important, user always looks for convenience and accessibilty and not always get into technology to locate a station while riding a bike.
“...it’s hard to get approval on things and get things done, where to put in,... this is ours, this is DOTS because it’s our garage right, so this is a place where we could just put it down and not have to get permission...” An answer from the planner for deciding the station location for the destination that user was referring to not been able to locate. Is this justified? Is convenience of user important or the planner? Good qualities should not be compromised.
Figure 2: Quotes from the interviews and their interpretation
Limitations Not much literature on campus bikeshare stations was found, if available, the scales were not very comparable and mostly used quantitative research methods. Inclement weather affected the study by limiting field observations and participant observations. No events related to bikeshare program or official agency meetings happened on campus during the observation period limiting the participant observation. Getting access for interviews was a problem, given time frame. As this was a time bound study, iteration of methods was difficult. Also, it did not explore other qualitative methods like survey and focus groups.
Figure 3: Coding Matrix
CONNECTIVITY
Conclusion & Recommendations Stations create an appeal and a branding for a bikeshare system with convenience & accessibilty of technology and location being their essential characterstics. This study will inform the Department of Transportation Services, UMD to make smart expansions of the m-bike and reevaluate the existing stations to improve them. Also, it will provide a base for other future bike share studies. A second phase of study is suggested which should conduct: Environmental observations throughout different seasons and different time of the day to better understand the social interaction of people around stations. More interviews by frequency of station usage and membership criterias. A survey, designed from interview insights, to gauge the community preferences. Future research should expand the scope from campus to the city focussing on: exploring the qualities of a well-used station for an entire College town community and how it changes from on campus to off campus. Works Cited Betancourt, L., Chan, C., Horan, A., & Burch, S. (2014, May 1). A More Bike Friendly Boston College: An Assessment of the Bicycle Culture at Boston College and Recommendations to Improve It. Retrieved February 22, 2017, from Boston College: http://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/ schools/cas_sites/envstudies/pdf/Student%20Research/6_Biking_at_Boston_College_paper.pdf Carlos, J., Gutierrez, J., & Latorre, M. (2012). Optimizing the location of stations in bike-sharing programs:A GIS approach. Applied Geography, 235-246. CTRE. (2002, November). Handbook of Simplified Practice for Traffic Studies. (M. W. Anderson, Ed.) Retrieved March 12, 2017, from IOWA State University Institute for Transportation: http:// www.ctre.iastate.edu/pubs/traffichandbook/ Fishman, E. (2015, April 4). Bikeshare: A Review of Recent Literature, Transport Reviews. Retrieved February 18, 2017, from Transport Reviews: http://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016_Fishman_Bikeshare-A-Review-of-Recent-Literature.pdf
Gehrke, R. S., & Welch, F. T. (2017). A Bikeshare Station Area Typology To Forecast The Station-Level Ridership Activity Of System Expansion. 96th Annual Meeting of the transportation Research Board. Washington DC. Mehta, V. (2007). Lively Streets. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 165-187. NACTO. (2016). NACTO Bike Share Station Siting Guide 2016. Retrieved March 2017, from National Association of City Transportation Officials: http://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NACTOBike-Share-Siting-Guide_FINAL.pdf Nice Ride. (2015, May 7). Five year assessment & strategic plan. Retrieved February 23, 2017, from niceridemn: https://www.niceridemn.org/_asset/dvhz30/Nice-Ride-Five-Year-Assessment-060415.pdf Saldana, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. second. London: Sage. Urbana-Champaign, U. o. (2012). Bicycle Sharing Feasibility Study. Retrieved from icap.sustainability. illinois.edu: https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/files/project/107/Bicycle%20Sharing%20Feasibility%20Study%20Final%2011-30-12.pdf Weiss, R. S. (1994). Learning from Strangers- The rat and method of qualitative interview studies. New York: The Free Press.