The Texas A&M Transportation Institute, with the support of the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC), recently published the results of traffic and economic effects resulting from access management improvements. Three corridors were examined for this study: FM 1093, FM 1960 and FM 518. Access management is defined as a series of techniques utilized to “proactively” maintain vehicular access points to land adjacent to various roadways with the ultimate goal of improving mobility and safety.
This effort sought to measure any changes that had occurred after the original study in 2004. A few study findings include the following:
- Reduced travel times and overall network delay were found after recommendations were implemented.
- Average crash frequency and crash rates were reduced in each of the safety corridors during all time periods.
- Driveway related crashes decreased by 40 to 70 percent.
- Entering/exiting vehicle-related crashes, rear end and intersection-related crashes were also reduced.
- Economic analysis showed positive growth in two out of three corridors and little evidence of business sales impacted negatively by roadway improvements.
This study was innovative in part because it utilized sales tax data from nearby businesses as a proxy for assessing the economic effects of access management improvements. This is a slightly different approach than most economic evaluations. This study also highlights the increasing interdisciplinary nature of transportation research. Economists, public policy analysts, and engineers all collaborated together to accomplish this research task.
To read the full TTI/HGAC Corridor Access Management report, please click here.