lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Cyclists along USBR 36 will also experience the Allegheny National Forest, Lake Erie, and Pine Creek Gorge — the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. “Our principal mission is making transpor- tation as safe and accessible as possible, no matter how you travel,” PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said. “These designations complement our significant investments and focus on connectivity and safety in these regions so people can expe- rience all that Pennsylvania has to offer.” “These bike route designations will lead to new transportation and recreational oppor- tunities in countless towns across northern Pennsylvania,” said Carrie Lepore, deputy secretary for marketing, tourism, and film. “By building out our bicycle infrastruc- ture, we’re increasing our ability to attract new businesses, boosting Pennsylvania tourism, and making our commonwealth a better place to live, work, and play.” Georgia USBR 15 is the second officially des- ignated route in Georgia and currently extends 92 miles. USBR 15 starts at the Florida-Georgia border and travels north through Valdosta, Nashville, Enigma, Ocilla, Fitzgerald, and ends in Rochelle. The landscape is rural and mostly flat, and cyclists on USBR 15 can expect lots of dense greenery with the occasional large open field. USBR 15 is being designated in segments, and the next stage will see the route ex- tended through Pineview, Hawkinsville, Irwinton, Toomsboro, and Milledgeville, with spurs to Lakeland, Tifton, Atlanta, and Macon. Eventually, USBR 15 will connect to the Georgia-North Carolina border, traversing hilly and scenic North Georgia.
StreetLight Data launches Multimodal Measurement Initiative
In early June, StreetLight Data, Inc., a mobility analytics company, launched its Multimodal Measurement Initiative (M2Initiative) to measure the way all modes of travel interact. This includes trips made by personal vehicles, public transit, walking, biking, commercial trucks, and even “gig economy” trips made by on-demand rideshare and delivery drivers. As part of the M2Initiative, StreetLight Data is building a working group to collaborate on the issue of multimodal travel interactions. The company is already engaged with select early- adopter partners and clients to deliver analytics for new modes. The M2Initiative partners include providers of mode-specific data sets, public agencies that want to lead in measuring new modes, academic institutions, and private transportation firms that are exploring new business models. Several projects are already underway. StreetLight Data is accepting a limited number of additional partners and is actively seeking organizations that can contribute calibration or validation data. Organizations can request to join on the company’s website at www.streetlightdata.com/multimodal-measurement-initiative. In the first iteration of the M2Initiative, StreetLight Data focused on bicycle, pedestrian, bus, train, and “gig economy” driving (which covers ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft, plus delivery applications like GrubHub and Postmates). It has already delivered several editions of these analytics to pilot clients. StreetLight is now accelerating development of new analytics that describe the mobility behavior of each of these transportation modes individually. The company is also prioritizing creation of new tools that describe how these modes interact. “Interaction is what we all truly care about,” said StreetLight Data CEO Laura Schewel. “As a timely example, not many people care about electric scooters in the abstract. We care if they have a positive or negative impact on driving, pedestrian activity, or transit ridership. As we move forward into a world where you might expect to take six modes of transportation in a single day, and where new modes, including autonomous vehicles and aerial urban travel, are on the horizon, we must measure all of these new variables separately and together in order to effectively manage them. “On the same road we will have pedestrians, autonomous shuttles, ride-hailing rides, someone driving their car to drop off a lunch delivery then transforming back into a citizen on their way home from work, as well as gas-powered SUVs,” Schewel said. “Measuring the interaction of these factors is critical. We must ensure that we maximize the social and environmental gains that can come from all of these modes, but not fall prey to the potential dangers— dangers that can be exacerbated if we treat modes as unrelated.”
Information provided by the Adventure Cycling Association (www.adventurecycling.org).
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august 2018
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