Our model for advancing Complete Streets policy adoption and implementation works because our Coalition includes a range of groups working to spread the word, advocate for policy change, and provide technical expertise. Today, we highlight the technical expertise of Silver Partner firm Fehr & Peers.
Fehr & Peers is a transportation planning and traffic engineering consulting firm focusing on multi-modal, Complete Streets planning and design. They support the Coalition’s policy adoption model and have advanced technical practices that help communities implement their Complete Streets policies.
Fehr & Peers staff wrote Planning Urban Roadway Systems, a proposed recommended practice issued by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. The layered network designates modal emphasis by street, recognizing that while all traveler types need to be accommodated within a community, no single street can accommodate all transportation users at all times. The layered network concept envisions streets as systems, each street type designed to create a high quality experience for its intended users.
They’ve also done significant work to advance the use of Multi-Modal Level of Service (MMLOS). Conventional methods for calculating Level of Service (LOS) for a road or intersection only address the experience of one set of users: vehicle drivers. This simple fact has broad implications, because LOS is often used as the primary — or sometimes the only! — metric of transportation system performance. Over the past several years, the transportation planning field has seen a profusion of new methods for calculating LOS that claim to account for the experiences of a much wider range of road users. But local agencies may be confused by all of the options and unsure about which method would best meet their needs and reflect their community’s values. Fehr & Peers has assembled a Multi-Modal Level of Service Toolkit to help agency staff cut through the confusion.
Thanks to these new tools from Fehr & Peers, communities are better able to translate their Complete Streets policies into actionable practice and on-the-ground change.