Bicyclist and Pedestrian Safety Improvements on Water Street Corridor

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has identified the West Water Street corridor in downtown Charlottesville as an area of focus for bicyclist safety due to a high rate of pedestrian crashes between 2012 and 2016. Water Street hosts one of the main bicycle routes in the city; however, there is a high level of traffic stress for bicyclists. Therefore, it is critical to determine pedestrian and bicyclist safety countermeasures. Ideally, Water Street would be able to accommodate vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists in a safe and efficient manner. The focus of this project is to research, create, and test alternative roadway designs to improve bicyclist and pedestrian safety in the Water Street corridor. The design team analyzes best practices from other bicycle-and pedestrian-friendly cities to inspire design ideas for the specific Water Street corridor. Multi-criteria decision analysis is used to choose the best design concept. This one concept is then extrapolated to other similar designs in which one aspect of the main design alternative is changed. The team tests those designs using a virtual reality (VR) environment and biometric data collection. The team is currently (February 2020) starting to conduct experiments in the VR environment. A user testing plan is being created and reviewed that will then be executed in March 2020 to conduct experiments. User comfort and safety will be evaluated across four different design alternatives. From this evaluation, a recommendation will be proposed to the City of Charlottesville as to what design should be implemented.