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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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    <item>
      <title>Pittsylvania County Road Orders 1767-1783</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2702871</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Road history projects undertaken by VTRC establish the feasibility of studies of early road networks and their use in the environmental review process.  This proposed volume marks the 33rd entry in the Historic Roads of Virginia series, initiated in 1973 by the Virginia Highway & Transportation Research Council (subsequently VTRC). Pittsylvania County Road Orders 1767-1783 will further the coverage of the early southern Virginia transportation records begun in the previously published Brunswick County Road Orders 1732-1749, Lunenburg County Road Orders 1746-1764, Amelia County Road Orders 1735-1753, and Halifax County Road Orders 1752-1767.

This volume covers the period of Pittsylvania County’s greatest extent, from its creation from Halifax County in 1767, through its division to create Henry County in 1777, and extending to the end of the Revolutionary War, which saw significant military contributions, including essential supply centers, in Pittsylvania. By the second half of the 18th century, Pittsylvania County contained important east-west and north-south transportation routes. The county’s early transportation records provide information relating to transportation connections not only with neighboring counties and other counties farther to the north, east and west in Virginia, but also with with neighboring North Carolina. This publication will have particular application to the cultural resource research relating to transportation projects in this area of southern Virginia. 

If questions arise about early roads once a VDOT road improvement project is already underway (or nearly underway), primary historical research of this nature can take 6 to 12 months to complete. Therefore, this volume can be a source of potentially significant cost savings for VDOT, including the avoided costs of project delays and avoided consultant costs for cultural resource studies should questions arise. 
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2026 10:58:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2702871</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Connecting Dangerous Driving to Vulnerable Road User Safety</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2255770</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Nationwide and within Kansas there has been an increase in crashes affecting non-motorized travelers. Given the potential of these crashes to result in severe injuries for the non-motorized traveler, there is an urgent need to explore policies that might better protect Kansans who travel on foot or by bicycle. Traditional research has focused on creating safer infrastructure for non-motorized users. This project proposes a different approach, namely a focus on dangerous drivers. By comparing driving histories of motorists who do and who do not crash into non-motorized users, it is possible to statistically assess whether these two populations are distinct. Any distinction offers potential avenues for enforcement and charging policies that might better curb the behaviors of dangerous drivers and better protect non-motorized travelers. This proposed project will employ statistical techniques to assess whether past driving history is predictive of dangerous driving vis a vis nonmotorized traveler. Identifying any statistical difference between a control and treatment group opens up potential new policy interventions. This project will carefully assess any differences and, if any are found, propose policies that might reduce associated risk to non-motorized travelers. 
Task 1: Literature review on driver history and pedestrian crash risk. A history of driving charges has been found to be predictive of increasing the likelihood of a motorist hitting a bicyclist or pedestrian. This literature review will broadly explore the research that has used statistical methods to explore charge history to identify problematic drivers with a specific focus on application of this concern to motorists who subsequently hit cyclists and pedestrians. This review will also consider interventions used to reduce dangerous driving. 
Task 2: Data collection/cleaning of driver charge records This research uses crash data records to identify motorists involved in crashes with pedestrians and cyclists. A sample of charge histories is then drawn that includes both those identified motorists and a control set of other motorists in Kansas. This task includes pulling the crash records, pulling the charge records, and ensuring the sufficiency of these data for the subsequent analysis. 
Task 3: Descriptive statistics on driver history records This task explores the characteristics of motorists involved in bicycle and pedestrian crashes to provide aggregate information on their demographics and charge histories. Similar descriptive are generated for motorists not involved in bicycle crashes and for motorists involved in pedestrian and bicycle crashes who are charged for that incident. 
Task 4: Inferential statistics regarding the likelihood of being charged for crashes involving bicyclists and pedestrians and the likelihood for history of charges being predictive of being involved in a crash with pedestrians and cyclists. This task includes two key statistical explorations to identify what, if any, traits increase the chance of motorists involved in pedestrian or bicycle crashes being charged in those incidents and to quantify to what extent a history of charges is associated with an increased likelihood of being a motorist involved in a crash with pedestrians or bicyclists. The specific statistical methods used will be determined once the data are collected and cleaned but will likely include some combination of discriminant analysis and match case-control analysis. 
Task 5: Report writing and associated presentations This task will document the research process and present its findings. These findings will include recommendations of potential intervention policies to improve road safety by targeting dangerous drivers. These strategies are likely to include policies appropriate for both state and local implementation.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 26 Sep 2023 15:36:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2255770</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Halifax County Road Orders 1752-1767</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2211661</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Eighteenth century transportation-related court records (“road orders”) for individual Virginia counties constitute the primary evidence for early road development and outline early settlement and transportation corridors.  This project will identify and transcribe the "road orders" from the Halifax County court order books for the period 1752-1767, and will develop a comprehensive new index for them. This study will continue and extend VTRC’s research on the early transportation records for much of central- southern Virginia published in the Historic Roads of Virginia series. Between 1752 and 1767, Halifax County’s territory encompassed all of the region along the Virginia-North Carolina line between Lunenburg County and the Blue Ridge Mountains, and contained important east-west and north-south transportation routes.  The county’s early transportation records provide significant information relating not only to transportation connections with nearby counties and more distant portions of Virginia, but also with the neighboring colony of North Carolina. This transportation network would later be important in the Revolutionary War.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jul 2023 10:18:53 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2211661</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Guidance for Implementing Equitable Transportation Decision-Making</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1854181</link>
      <description><![CDATA[No abstract provided.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2021 21:48:16 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1854181</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Are US cities and regions overbuilding roadway in the post-Interstate era?</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1767695</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research project examines a series of interwoven questions about how, where, and why state and federal governments finance and construct large arterial and highway projects and whether the benefits of these projects tend to outweigh their financial, social, and environmental costs. Answering these questions will contribute to a larger inquiry into whether US cities, metropolitan areas, and megaregions have too much roadway. The focus is on large arterial, highway, and freeway investments, where most urban travel occurs and where state and federal investment policies have the largest influence on travel behavior, economic development, and urban growth. Although aspects of the research will touch on transit investments, which are particularly well studied, the benefits of transit depend largely on the state of road infrastructure in US urban areas.

The first major research task will review public documents and congressional testimony to examine how, where, and why state and federal governments finance and construct large arterial and highway projects. The emphasis is on roadway construction since 1992, shortly after the completion of the interstate highway and the signing of federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, which announced a major departure from earlier roadbuilding practices. The next research task will examine two or more case studies of nationally notorious road investments, such as the Big Dig in Boston and the bridge to nowhere in Ketchikan, Alaska, that made headlines as a sign of wasteful spending during the 2008 national elections. The third research task will develop metropolitan-level empirical analysis of the existing roadway system.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 04 Feb 2021 18:17:41 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1767695</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Legal Problems Arising out of Highway Programs. Topic 25-07. Review of Statutory and Case Law on Planning and Environmental Linkages</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1644226</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Before the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (42 USC 4321 et seq.), citizens were frequently unsuccessful using the courts to stop transportation improvements from proceeding. Courts tended to rule that the decision to proceed with a transportation improvement was a political decision not subject to judicial review. When NEPA became law, it required the preparation of environmental impact statements for large transportation projects that required federal funding. Federal approval of the environmental impact statements was subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act. Since the environmental impact statements included explanations of project purpose and need, opponents could obtain judicial review of the justification for transportation improvements.  In order to qualify for federal funding, transportation improvements needed to come from regional transportation plans.

Congress has responded to this development by exempting regional plans from judicial review (23 USC 134(h)(3)) and by allowing purpose and need statements in environmental impact statements to reflect objectives identified in regional transportation plans (23 USC 139 (f)(3)(A)).

For many years federal, state, and local transportation agencies have been promoting the concept of reliance on planning decisions and analyses undertaken during the transportation planning process for establishing the purpose and need portion and the reasonable range of alternatives in environmental documents prepared pursuant to  NEPA. This approach, known as Planning and Environmental Linkages or PEL, is consistent with NEPA practices for incorporation by reference (40 CFR 1502.21) and reduction of duplication with state planning processes (40 CFR 1506.2). Federal transportation agencies have adopted regulations (23 CFR 450.212 and 23 CFR 450.318) and guidance to encourage the practice (23 CFR 450 Appendix A).  

Reviewing courts have endorsed this practice (e.g., Honolulutraffic.com v. FTA, 742 F. 3rd 1242 (9th Cir. 2014)).

The objective of this research is to produce a digest that answers the following questions:
(1) What is the litigation history behind judicial review of purpose and need statements and PEL? (2) How are the various approaches to PEL different from each other and what deference do courts provide for each? (3) What legal risks are associated with each approach?]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 05 Aug 2019 22:38:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1644226</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Federal Funding Uncertainty in State, Local, and Regional Departments of Transportation: Impacts, Responses, and Adaptation</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1516178</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Historically, federal legislation authorization of the federal aid highway program covered a 6-year period, and transportation funding was more certain. When funding levels are predictable, state DOTs and other transportation agencies can devise optimal long-term capital investment plans, more accurately forecast future asset conditions, set realistic performance targets, and better meet stated commitments to communities and stakeholders.  
Uncertain federal funding adversely impacts the transportation system and decision-making in many ways, resulting in wide-ranging impacts on the U.S. economy and quality of life. It can slow transportation program and project delivery, lead to degraded pavement and bridge conditions, reduce system performance, and worsen transportation service. Further, while recent federal regulations and acts have increased emphasis on performance-based outcomes, the timeframe needed to achieve these outcomes exceeds the current timeframe of funding certainty. An additional potential consequence of funding uncertainty is erosion of public trust, given that commitments to maintain or improve the transportation system may not be kept.  
The objectives of this research are to (1) identify and document the consequences and significant impacts of federal funding uncertainty on state DOTs, other transportation agencies, and stakeholders and (2) present how these agencies have responded and adapted to these uncertainties. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2018 11:37:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1516178</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Efficient Nonlinear Time History Analysis of California Bridges</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1441856</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) report 2008/03 described modeling guidelines specific to both SAP2000 and Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees), with a comparison of the differences between the observed bridge responses. The report provided analysis guidelines and suggestions for optimal selection. Recently completed work by researchers at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) led to the development of a graphical user interface (GUI) for a set of OpenSees-based tools, named MSBridge. The GUI allows rapid model building for a broad range of typical bridge configurations, and graphically displays output. However, the work did not interpret results obtained via MSBridge, e.g., through parametric studies that could be used as a tool for establishing reasonable bounds on bridge response to seismic loading. This made it difficult to move forward with implementing nonlinear time-history analysis of ordinary California bridges.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 04 Jan 2017 10:54:41 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1441856</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Saturation, Economic, and Energy Effects of Maturing Urban Roadway Networks</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1403209</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In the U.S., most urban roadway networks have been fully deployed. While outward growth still occurs, for the most part, the urban core roadway systems are no longer changing. This implies that there is a "maturing" of infrastructure. Yet at the same time, cities across the country are experiencing more and more congestion and many states and regions are unable to keep up with the long-term financing for rehabilitation to maintain high quality infrastructure. A saturated and deteriorating urban roadway system has the potential to compromise passenger and goods movement services thereby creating economic impacts for the city. New knowledge is needed to better understand i) how passenger and freight travel is effected by a roadway network that is becoming increasing saturated and ii) how this saturation may affect vehicle travel thereby impacting economic activity and changing transportation energy use. This project will develop a model of the historical growth of roadways from the beginning of Los Angeles (approximately 1900) to today by combining a statistical assessment of building ages in building assessor databases with geographic information system (GIS) analysis of roadway networks. To do this, to start with, a geospatial analysis will be developed that overlays the current building assessor databases at parcel scale, roadway network atlases, and travel analysis zones. Figure 1 shows the growth of each city based on building assessor databases. For each travel analysis zone, the modern day distribution of building ages will be determined. It is estimated that there will be roughly 20-50 buildings per travel analysis zone. Following, the oldest building vintages will be assigned to roadway links within the travel analysis zone under the assumption that buildings and roadways were deployed around the same time. For example, if for a particular zone it is found that the oldest buildings are from the 1930s era, that vintage will be assigned to the roadway links that service those buildings. Freeways and interstates will be assessed separately since they were likely constructed more systematically. The result will be a spatially explicit model of the growth of the roadway network over time. The model will be validated through the review of historical satellite photos. The infrastructure growth model will be joined with an assessment of changes in vehicle miles of travel (VMT). The project will start by using county-scale data for Los Angeles and historical travel demand model output at the travel analysis zone scale that has already been acquired from the Southern California Association of Governments. The analysis will start with Los Angeles because travel in that region has peaked (Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 2012) and the infrastructure is mature. The VMT estimates will be compared to VMT projections that were developed in the past 10-20 years to assess how much travel was anticipated but did not occur. Elasticity estimates of fuel price, income, fuel economy, population, lane miles, and other factors will then be used to assess the potential supply and demand drivers of VMT changes for both passenger and freight. It is anticipated that there will be many elasticity estimates available and there will be a focus on region-specific past research. The project will also focus on developing an uncertainty assessment around the plethora of elasticity factors available to characterize in the best or worst case, how much those variables explain the changes in VMT. The results of the project can be used as a foundation for twenty-first century transportation infrastructure investment that balances environmental conditions with environmental impacts at a time when mobility dominated by personal vehicle travel may be changing. Improving the understanding of how passenger and freight activities have responded to the growth of cities will better position a recommendation to cities as to how they should invest in next generation infrastructure to better facilitate the growth that is expected in many major US metropolitan regions in the coming century.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2016 01:00:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1403209</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Letting Scenic and Historic Roads in Delaware Tell Their Story</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1228132</link>
      <description><![CDATA[A web-based manual to facilitate the identification, designation and management of scenic and historic highways.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:15:15 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1228132</guid>
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