Modeling Socioeconomic Factors in Highway Construction and Expansion: Examining Impacts on Low -income Families

Modeling Socioeconomic Factors in Highway Construction and Expansion: Examining Impacts on Low -income Families PDF Author: Coray Quentin Davis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
The demand for transportation and travel is a major focus for designing a highway. The different socioeconomic characteristics of many regions often stimulate the need for highways to be constructed or expanded. This research aims at developing a systematic methodology that is able to comprehensively formulate the socioeconomic factors in highway construction and expansion. While much awareness has been seen in recent years towards socioeconomic trends and their relation to induced demand, these characteristics have not been effectively incorporated into highway planning and design models. Low-income neighborhoods and communities are often impacted when new highways and expressways are built. In this dissertation research an optimization model is developed to determine the impact of highway alignments on low-income areas. A low-income cost formulation is developed to determine the extent of impact of new highway construction on low-income families. The optimization model is connected to a Genetic Algorithm (GA) from a previously developed highway alignment optimization model, to generate an optimal alignment. A Geographic Information System (GIS) in conjunction with a GA is used to model the socioeconomic characteristics. The GA is used because of their effectiveness in searching through complex spaces with large numbers of local optima. A multiple regression analysis is also performed to estimate the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), which is an input to the optimization model. Penalty costs are chosen and are used to penalize alignments crossing low-income areas. Multiple values for the penalty costs are used to test the sensitivity of generated alignments. Various case studies and sensitivity analyses are performed to test the robustness of the developed methodology. The results of each run for each case study are compared with results from a previously developed highway alignment optimization model. The results indicate that alignments can be generated that avoid low-income properties, but they require high penalty costs. The results also show that extensive research must be conducted on developing a penalty cost that is suitable for avoiding low-income communities. Finally, the results of the case studies demonstrate that one can select different highway routes depending on the relative weights of penalty costs. -- Abstract.

Modeling Socioeconomic Factors in Highway Construction and Expansion: Examining Impacts on Low -income Families

Modeling Socioeconomic Factors in Highway Construction and Expansion: Examining Impacts on Low -income Families PDF Author: Coray Quentin Davis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
The demand for transportation and travel is a major focus for designing a highway. The different socioeconomic characteristics of many regions often stimulate the need for highways to be constructed or expanded. This research aims at developing a systematic methodology that is able to comprehensively formulate the socioeconomic factors in highway construction and expansion. While much awareness has been seen in recent years towards socioeconomic trends and their relation to induced demand, these characteristics have not been effectively incorporated into highway planning and design models. Low-income neighborhoods and communities are often impacted when new highways and expressways are built. In this dissertation research an optimization model is developed to determine the impact of highway alignments on low-income areas. A low-income cost formulation is developed to determine the extent of impact of new highway construction on low-income families. The optimization model is connected to a Genetic Algorithm (GA) from a previously developed highway alignment optimization model, to generate an optimal alignment. A Geographic Information System (GIS) in conjunction with a GA is used to model the socioeconomic characteristics. The GA is used because of their effectiveness in searching through complex spaces with large numbers of local optima. A multiple regression analysis is also performed to estimate the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), which is an input to the optimization model. Penalty costs are chosen and are used to penalize alignments crossing low-income areas. Multiple values for the penalty costs are used to test the sensitivity of generated alignments. Various case studies and sensitivity analyses are performed to test the robustness of the developed methodology. The results of each run for each case study are compared with results from a previously developed highway alignment optimization model. The results indicate that alignments can be generated that avoid low-income properties, but they require high penalty costs. The results also show that extensive research must be conducted on developing a penalty cost that is suitable for avoiding low-income communities. Finally, the results of the case studies demonstrate that one can select different highway routes depending on the relative weights of penalty costs. -- Abstract.

Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 846

Get Book Here

Book Description


Communities in Action

Communities in Action PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Socioeconomic, Health, and Human Factors

Socioeconomic, Health, and Human Factors PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Highway planning
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Get Book Here

Book Description
TRB's Transportation Research Record (TRR): Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2452 consists of 14 articles that examine the impact of highway investment on the economy and employment across U.S. industrial sectors; the evolving connection of transit, agglomeration, and growth of high-technology business clusters; an analysis of socioeconomically disaggregated longitudinal employer-household dynamics data to understand commuting, job clusters, and travel burdens; the effect of accessibility on property prices; and the impact of bus rapid transit and metro rail on property values in Guangzhou, China. This TRR explores accessibility for low-income workers in New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina; travel behavior of the poor after welfare reform; impact of attitudes and life stage on decline in rates of driver's license acquisition by young people in Melbourne, Australia; the use of a health impact assessment for transportation planning; and health impacts of transportation projects in an urban Indian context. Additionally, this TRR summarizes rural communities and transportation equity in California's San Joaquin Valley; workplace neighborhoods, walking, physical activity, weight status, and perceived health; dispersion modeling of traffic-related air pollutant exposures and health effects among children with asthma in Detroit, Michigan; mediators in the relationship between commute time and subjective well-being.

Energy Abstracts for Policy Analysis

Energy Abstracts for Policy Analysis PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Power resources
Languages : en
Pages : 426

Get Book Here

Book Description


Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity?

Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? PDF Author: Transportation Research Board
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISBN: 0309094984
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book Here

Book Description
TRB Special Report 282: Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? Examining the Evidence reviews the broad trends affecting the relationships among physical activity, health, transportation, and land use; summarizes what is known about these relationships, including the strength and magnitude of any causal connections; examines implications for policy; and recommends priorities for future research.

Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences

Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences PDF Author: Michele Ver Ploeg
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437921345
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 directed the U.S. Dept. of Agr. to conduct a 1-year study to assess the extent of areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food, identify characteristics and causes of such areas, consider how limited access affects local populations, and outline recommend. to address the problem. This report presents the findings of the study, which include results from two conferences of national and internat. authorities on food deserts and a set of research studies. It also includes reviews of existing literature, a national-level assessment of access to large grocery stores and supermarkets, analysis of the economic and public health effects of limited access, and a discussion of existing policy interventions. Illus.

Highway Research Abstracts

Highway Research Abstracts PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Highway engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 968

Get Book Here

Book Description


Legacy Parkway Project, Construction from I-215 at 2100 North in Salt Lake City to I-15 and US 89 Near Farmington

Legacy Parkway Project, Construction from I-215 at 2100 North in Salt Lake City to I-15 and US 89 Near Farmington PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1012

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters

The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters PDF Author: Debarati Guha-Sapir
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199841934
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work combines research and empirical evidence on the economic costs of disasters with theoretical approaches. It provides new insights on how to assess and manage the costs and impacts of disaster prevention, mitigation, recovery and adaption, and much more.