Is transit dying? While transit agencies once celebrated that millennials were unusually predisposed to use transit and live in urban areas served by transit, today we find that the demographic boost is largely over. The TransitCenter recently published “Growing Up and Away from Transit,” co-authored by RSG’s Greg Spitz. The article explores this shift, what it may mean for the future of transit, and what transit agencies will need to do to keep up.

RSG Director Jon Slason presented last week at the Vermont Development Conference in Burlington, VT. His presentation, “Demographics and Housing: Envisioning the Future of Vermont Living,” was alongside Betsy Bishop of the Vermont Futures Project. Their interactive session shared details on the rapidly changing dynamics of housing in Vermont and hosted a discussion on how to address these challenges.

Noise barriers do not just block noise, but can also generally change the way noise is experienced around them. To further explore this issue, the Transportation Research Board (TRB)’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) recently published the RSG-coauthored report Field Evaluation of Reflected Noise from a Single Noise Barrier, which analyzes the characteristics of sound reflected from a noise barrier to the opposite side of a highway. Residents living opposite newly added single noise barriers sometimes complain about increased traffic noise. Currently available analytical tools are limited in their ability to evaluate this reflected noise and some of the subtle changes in the quality of sound that can occur when it is reflected. Therefore, it is a challenge to determine conclusively if complaints about reflected noise are the result of actual or perceived changes in noise characteristics, and to identify locations where absorptive surface treatments could be beneficial.

The study compares reflected noise from sound barriers with different surfaces and examines both the levels, frequencies, and quality of reflected noise to better understand how it is experienced by communities. The report is accompanied by several appendices, a tool, and a guide. Learn more and check them out at: http://www.trb.org/NCHRP/Blurbs/178305.aspx

While car manufacturers once touted their acceleration and high performance, now, it’s the included safety features that garner the most attention. RSG Director Jonathan Slason shares his recent experience with new assisted driving technology in his article “A Plea for Drivers to Slow Down… Assisted by In-Vehicle Technology.”

On Saturday, RSG’s Abbie Larkin presented at the Acadia National Park Science Symposium at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. The presentation, which was part of the session on using science to preserve resources and protect visitor experience, described RSG's work constructing models to inform transportation planning and visitor use management at Acadia National Park.

The symposium was designed to provide a forum to hear about science taking place in the region and to interact and build collaborations with scientists, students, park staff, and others working in a range of fields.

RSG Director Steven Gayle presented earlier this week at the ITE New York Upstate Section Annual Meeting in Scotia, NY. His presentation was titled “Planning for Future Mobility.” RSG is proud to have been a silver sponsor of the event.

RSG Director Steven Gayle to present this week at the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas. His presentation is titled “Planning for Future Mobility in a Performance-Based World.” It will share RSG’s synthesis of future mobility research (autonomous, connected, electrified, shared) in an MPO context, including relating it to the new ‘transportation system performance’ planning requirement for MPOs and state departments of transportation (DOTs).

Did you know that meteorology can affect the sound adjacent to highways? RSG will be leading a Transportation Research Board (TRB) webinar on September 25 titled, “Meteorological Effects on Roadway Noise.” Presenters will describe the quantitative research and public outreach materials that state highway agencies can use to screen for meteorological influences and explain the effects to the public. Presenting alongside RSG's Ken Kaliski will be Roger Wayson of AECOM, Darlene Reiter of Bowlby and Associates, and Erik Salomons of TNO. It will be moderated by Aaron Hastings of Volpe Center.

Learn more and register at: https://webinar.mytrb.org/Webinars/Details/1220

RSG Director Chris Leggett’s research was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. The article, “Estimating the Value of Lost Recreation Days from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill,” describes a recreation choice model developed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to assess recreation-related losses resulting from the spill.

RSG’s Ken Kaliski will be presenting the paper “Regulating and Predicting Wind Turbine Sound in the US” at InterNoise 2018 in Chicago on August 29th. The presentation, also led Rob O’Neal and Mark Bastasch, will highlight key factors for local noise ordinances to consider, a review of various sound propagation modeling parameters for wind turbines, and a comparison of predicted values to the results of post-construction monitoring in the US.