St. Paul Advocates Guide Plan to Reduce Drive-Alone Traffic to Local University

Posted: 08/17/2011

Since late 2010, advocates at St. Paul Smart Trips in Minnesota have been actively involved in the development of a Travel Demand Management (TDM) plan for the University of St. Thomas’s new Anderson Student Center. The completed plan, which includes pedestrian/vehicle safety initiatives, transit promotion, improved biking facilities and a user-friendly rideshare program, was approved by the city of St. Paul this summer.

“The ultimate goal of a TDM plan is to manage the demand for traveling to a specific site with a focus on decreasing drive-alone travel,” says Damien Goebel, Employer Outreach Specialist with St. Paul Smart Trips and one of the lead developers of the plan. While you might not have heard of a TDM plan before, they are becoming more common and, depending on the amount of traffic and parking spaces generated by the new construction, are often a required component of development or renovation.

According to Goebel, because this construction of the student center caused a loss of more than 100 parking spaces, Smart Trips was brought on to help identify ways the group could improve the effectiveness of the University’s overall traffic strategies. Work on the plan first consisted of determining the users of the new building, their mode of transportation, the infrastructure already in place, and the amenities provided by the university. The plan quickly became very comprehensive, growing from a fixed focus on the student center to a more robust plan encompassing the campus.

“As we started to dig into the nuts and bolts of the project, we realized that one building could not be uncoupled from the entirety of the campus, so the plan evolved from being specifically about the student center to reducing drive-alone traffic to the campus as a whole,” says Goebel.

The plan resulted in calling for 20 measurable objectives. While the university hosts a robust program for biking, walking, and transit, some of these objectives addressed how to maximize participation in these programs, including a pedestrian safety education campaign, evaluating campus wayfinding, increasing transit pass sales, and advancing seasonal bicycle commuting.

Including a bike-ped advocacy group in the work of this TDM plan is a big step towards the inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian elements in new construction. “Our work helped to heavily influence several of the decisions made regarding implementing programs for biking and walking,” says Goebel. “They may not have had access to that information without our assistance.”

Curious to know more about what it takes to craft an effective TDM plan? Contact Damian at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and be sure to subscribe to the organization’s newsletter for all the latest developments.