Exploration and Implications of Multimodal Street Performance Metrics: What’s a Passing Grade?

Authors:  Madeline Brozen, Herbie Huff, Robin Liggett, Rui Wang, Michael Smart

Date: September 22, 2014

Project: Exploration and Implications of Multimodal Street Performance Metrics: What’s a Passing Grade?

In the last decade, a number of new metrics have arisen that purport to measure a street’s performance for walking and biking. These include

1) Multimodal Level-of-Service in the 2010 Highway Capacity Manual,
2) the Bicycle / Pedestrian Environmental Quality Index (BEQI/PEQI) from the San Francisco Department of Health, and
3) Bicycle and Pedestrian Level of Service Method originated in Charlotte, NC.

How do these methods work? How were they developed? How do they stack up against one another? This report explains the development process for these three measures, tests them on real world segments and then perform a case study on the sensitivity to real world changes.