William Warren Riggs

University of San Francisco | USFCA · School of Management

In the face of diminished federal and state transportation funding, cities continue to look for creative local funding mechanisms to pay for and implement their multi-modal goals. To understand the types of local funding being used, this study analyzes case study cities across the U.S. to identify best practices, documenting the most widely used me...

As use of mobile technology grows rapidly, planning agencies experiment and adopt new policies to accommodate this increase. While a significant body of literature has extolled the growth and opportunity this technological change presents, little is looking about its use by local government and urban planning organizations. This research investigat...

This study evaluates the inclusiveness of walkable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Using a series of regression models that control for an array of factors, this study finds that blacks are more likely to live in less walkable areas, a factor which could result in increased societal costs. These models suggest that this factor may mask other...

"Active living research" has been accused of being overly "physically deterministic" and this article argues that urban planners must continue to evolve research and address biases in this area. The article first provides background on how researchers have dealt with the relationship between the built environment and health over years. This leads t...

One of the major challenges for society today is to reach environmental goals. Around the world governments aim to reduce transportation emissions and are investing in a diverse set of strategies, including connected cooperative and automated mobility. Many discussions about automated road transportation technologies revolve around automation feasi...

A substantial and growing body of literature has provided educated guesses and transportation demand modeling about how riders might behave in autonomous vehicles (AVs). No studies to-date have explored how riders behave when given access to rides in these new modes of transportation, and how AVs can help address lingering transportation challenges...

The coordination of transportation and land use (also known as “smart growth”) has been a long-standing goal for planning and engineering professionals, but to this day remains an elusive concept to realise. In response, this paper dialogues literature and practices related to transportation and land use coordination (TLC), as well as sustainabilit...

Chapter 11 provides summary of the book including a review of the key lessons learned. It offers that a spiritual connection can be made with how we frame our streets, and that they can be connected to efforts to make us antifragile. The chapter concludes with a call to action and connection to larger environmental issues such as global climate cha...

Chapter 8 lays out on the challenges to creating more vibrant street including the urgent need to connect dialogues on streets to those on housing. This includes dialogue on residential self-selection, gentrification and displacement. It discusses potential housing interventions that can support the transition to safer and more bicycle and pedestri...

Since the earliest days of civilization streets have played an important role in shaping society but over time a focus on roads design for automotive travel have changed their role in cities. This book challenges readers to revolutionize their roadways—end the idea of a road and reimagine the street. Active streets have long been transportation con...

Chapter 7 focuses on how streets can be designed with nature. It frames this first from a macro perspective on how cities can become more green. It then focuses a lens of international design case studies of how nature can be integrated into streets. These focus on green laneways and alleys, as well as how many cities are embracing a trend toward b...

Research suggests widespread proliferation of automated vehicles (AV) can potentially greatly increase transportation energy use and congestion [1]. One of the ways to mitigate such increases is to increase sharing in order to provide more environmentally and financially sustainable and cost effective services that match consumer demands for reliab...

This book offers a unique look at streets as locations that can evolve to support the economic, social, cultural and natural aspects of cities. It focuses on how the power of streets can be harnessed to shape more dynamic spaces for walking, biking and living and stimulate urban vitality and community regeneration.

She had always been fond of history, and here was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine. (Henry James, 1917, p 301) If we are to better understand how the street can be shaped for livability and human interaction, it is helpful to start with a basic understanding of how streets have evolved over the past few centuries. I...

Consider two human patterns. On the one hand, consider the fact that certain Greek village streets have a band of whitewash, four or five feet wide, outside every house, so that people can pull their chairs out into the street, into a realm which is half theirs, half street, and so contribute to the life around them. And on the other hand, consider...

… as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can’t expect traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the design of the road. (Hans Monderman in McNichol, 2004) Now that we have spent some time looking at th...

The road belonged to us then; we sang in it, we argued in it, while the horse-bus flowed softly by … (Le Corbusier in Berman, 1983) Singing, arguing, belonging; even Corbusier, who is sometimes derided for his views on transportation, believed the street was home for many things other than movement. Just as we saw with the case of Exhibition Road i...

I sum up that in 50 years nobody has systematically looked after a good urban habitat for Homo sapiens. We have written very few books about it. There’s been very little research done. We definitely know more about good habitats for mountain gorillas, Siberian tigers, or panda bears than we do know about a good urban habitat for Homo sapiens. (Jan...

Let me live in my house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by, They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish – so am I, Let me live in my house by the side of the road And be a friend to man. (Foss, 1897, p 12) The ideas discussed in the last two chapters are not a panacea. The notion of making streets mo...

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time. Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. (Mark Twain, 1894, p 44, 130) Economic choices are what guide many of our urban experiences. As Mark Twain described, many of the habits that we have that need “reforming” need “coaxing” and...

When we speak of the “environment”, what we really mean is a relationship existing between nature and the society which lives in it. Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. […] We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex...

Let me live in a house by the side of the road Where the race of men go by — The men who are good and the men who are bad, As good and as bad as I. I would not sit in the scorner’s seat Nor hurl the cynic’s ban; — Let me live in a house by the side of the road And be a friend to man. (Foss, 1897, p 11) In the previous chapters I’ve discussed many w...

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. (Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952) From 2012– 2013, Google ran an automated driving pilot with its fledging autonomous driving unit (Krafnic, 2019). The company emailed employees to see who might want a Lexus that would drive itself...

This book offers a unique look at streets as locations that can evolve to support the economic, social, cultural and natural aspects of cities. It focuses on how the power of streets can be harnessed to shape more dynamic spaces for walking, biking and living and stimulate urban vitality and community regeneration.

This book offers a unique look at streets as locations that can evolve to support the economic, social, cultural and natural aspects of cities. It focuses on how the power of streets can be harnessed to shape more dynamic spaces for walking, biking and living and stimulate urban vitality and community regeneration.

We must kill the street! (Le Corbusier, 1930) In around 1930, renowned architect Le Corbusier is attributed as saying that “we must kill the street.” Allegedly, the designer was almost struck by a car on the Champs- Elysées in Paris and took it upon himself to rethink city design and eliminate obsolete streets that were being taken over by cars. La...

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology can help disabled Americans achieve their desired level of mobility. However, realizing this potential depends on vehicle manufacturers, policymakers, and state and municipal agencies collaborating to accommodate the needs of disabled individuals at different stages of trip making through information system design...

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology can help disabled Americans achieve their desired level of mobility. However, realizing this potential depends on vehicle manufacturers, policymakers, and state and municipal agencies collaborating to accommodate the needs of disabled individuals at different stages of trip making through information system design...

Providing access to coastal and marine resources has long been a planning priority in many locations. At the same time, housing affordability and the lack of investment in lower-cost overnight accommodations in environmentally sensitive coastal areas have exasperated efforts to provide equitable access. While agencies have funded projects to help i...

Planning scholars have identified economic, safety, and social benefits of converting one-way streets to two-way. Less is known about how conversions could impact vehicular distances traveled—of growing relevance in an era of fleet automation, electrification, and ride-hailing. We simulate such a conversion in San Francisco, California. We find tha...

Planning scholars have identified economic, safety, and social benefits of converting one-way streets to two-way. Less is known about how conversions could impact vehicular distances traveled—of growing relevance in an era of fleet automation, electrification, and ride-hailing. We simulate such a conversion in San Francisco, California. We find tha...

This chapter focuses on local policy roadmaps. While a significant body of policy has been developed at the national and state levels, very little policy work has identified policy for local government. In this context, this chapter reviews state of technology and policy development and offers potential policy concepts for local government. Suggest...

Over the past decade, there has been rapid growth in the development and infusion of new and disruptive transportation. Some of the pivotal emergent technologies range from micro-mobility and bikeshare to ridesourcing that is set to utilize automated vehicles. This paper introduces and defines minimobility that falls between a regular ridesourcing/...

The transportation and mobility landscape has changed at exponential rates in recent years. This is particularly evident in the spread and use of micromobility, primarily via e-scooters, in the United States. It is widely agreed that municipalities need to regulate the deployment of this new form of mobility to capture some of the benefits that the...

Nearly 1 in 5 people in the US have a disability, and people aged 18 to 64 with disabilities make 28% fewer trips per day (2.6 v. 3.6 trips) on average than people without disabilities. These statistics highlight the considerable suppressed demand for travel by the disabled individual that is currently not being met. While autonomous vehicles are b...

Recently, there has been a renewed interest in statements about people’s rights to our streets. Drawing broadly from the literature and from an examination of a comprehensive collection of these rights, this article works toward establishing a comprehensive ethical framework that can be used to guide planning, design and engineering decisions to su...

Past research has explored how travelers make economic decisions, but only a small number of papers look at financial nudges and price anchoring—how they might cause travelers to make snap judgements about value that undermine rational economic principles. This research explores the behavioral response to different kinds of incentives. It finds tha...

Building on our discussion of livability ethics, equity and justice, the main purpose of this chapter is to provide a dialogue and guidance around principles and key dimensions of performance, such as our human rights in and around the streets, the issues of safety, speed, access, place-making, and how these forces of the street ecology shape our u...

With the rise of automation, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), and electrification of everything from skateboards to baby carriages to cars, we are at a critical inflection point regarding one of greatest transformational forces to our transport and urban form since the emergence of the private automobile a hundred years ago. This chapter dialogues how...

Increasingly large cities find themselves with a scarcity of affordable housing stock and cannot increase inventory quickly enough to meet urban growth trends. Some limitations include, lot size, regulatory barriers as well as environmental concerns. We focus on these barriers, first providing a background on these trends in the United States and t...

Autonomous vehicles (AV) have dramatic potential not only to reshape cities. This research surveys 602 US cities to investigate how they are preparing for urban autonomy. To conduct this evaluation, roughly 20 key indicators are evaluated. Based on the evaluation most cities in the United States do not have AV policies. Of these the majority have s...

Shared autonomous systems are an opportunity for cites to improve mobility, yet little discussion has framed their business model and how public and private stakeholders can plan for their deployment. This chapter frames the range of shared services as well as the anticipated opportunities and challenges to shared autonomous mobility ecosystems. It...

Emerging big data resources and practices provide opportunities to improve transportation safety planning and outcomes. However, researchers and practitioners recognise that big data from mobile phones, social media, and on-board vehicle systems include biases in representation and accuracy, related to transportation safety statistics. This study e...

Emerging big data resources and practices provide opportunities to improve transportation safety planning and outcomes. However, researchers and practitioners recognise that big data from mobile phones, social media, and on-board vehicle systems include biases in representation and accuracy, related to transportation safety statistics. This study e...

Recent research in city planning has measured “walkability” and multi-modalism through quantification of the built environment. Results have shown correlations with increased property values and neighbourhood stabilisation as well as a lack of spatial distribution of accessible resources based on socio-economic class. Some studies suggest that impr...

Over the past years there have been many revelations that have made it clear autonomous technology will become increasingly prevalent in our communities. Despite optimism about the technology there is a high degree of uncertainty about how they will be deployed in urban environs, particularly with regard to street design. Based on the concepts of a...

How can automated vehicles be deployed on city streets to enhance urban and regional livability? This chapter outlines a visioning process where automakers, engineers, planning and policy professionals shared perspectives on how autonomous vehicles can be integrated onto city streets. It provides an engagement process as well as policy and design o...

Transport authorities and mobility planning stakeholders have started discussing approaches to planning for road automation in cities and metropolitan areas. We present guiding principles for developing AV ready mobility plans, and show how scenario development, travel demand and transport modelling and participatory street redesign can be part of...

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) offer a new entryway into society-wide conversations regarding transportation, functions of cities, the use of streets and, ultimately, urban sustainability. AVs are likely to disrupt urban spaces from city centers to the suburbs and rural edges of cities. This chapter focuses on these places. It tests potential changes to...

Transportation policymakers and planners have begun to realize the importance of sustainable transportation with regards to health, social implications, and the climate. Focusing on more active travel is one way that these officials are beginning to evolve cities in a way that supports these broader sustainability goals. In this light, this chapter...

Many studies have noted that denser and more accessible environments with higher level-of-service (LOS) tend to encourage higher levels of walking and bicycling activity. As streets are increasingly designed to facilitate safe cycling through built environment interventions, little has been done to evaluate perceptions of safety on different typolo...

This study investigates how changes in cycling encouragement program game mechanics affect measured bicycle riding frequency. The study relies on cycling program participant data from three large-scale and recurring annual encouragement campaigns (the UK National Cycle Challenge, Sydney Rides Challenge, and Atlanta Bike Challenge) with a total of 6...

University campuses have unique characteristics that influence travel demand. They benefit from controlled planning frameworks, can influence almost all aspects of pricing and on-campus transportation infrastructure, benefit from simplified many-to-one travel patterns, and maintain extensive data on nearly the entire campus community. Campuses repr...

Emerging technologies are fundamentally changing how we plan, develop, and manage our cities. Given trends of increasing mobile use, local governments are being required to adopt and use new technologies to plan, communicate and engage with citizens. In this context, this study then hypothesizes how technology trends will continue to impact plannin...

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Colleges and universities have been planning their campuses for centuries, yet scholars have conducted little empirical research regarding the nature of campus planning in the United States. We review recent scholarship on campus planning, discovering that it is dominated by case studies (sometimes in edite...

The Los Angeles Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) is an incentive program that encourages building reuse through regulatory exemptions. The ARO was partially intended to reduce vehicle miles travelled (VMT) by encouraging mixed commercial and residential uses in existing buildings within Downtown Los Angeles. Researchers and planners claim that the AR...

Global citizens get few moments to rethink streets and make decisions that will both serve the basic purposes of transportation and address urgent challenges like climate change, rising obesity, social isolation and conflict-all while expanding opportunities for general happiness throughout society. Such a pivotal moment is upon us, as autonomous v...

As many communities across the US convert one-way streets to two-way traffic flow, a growing body of work seeks to understand the implications. While some work indicates that there can be road safety and performance benefits to these conversions, only a small number of papers deal with the economic implications. This paper examines the economic imp...