This paper documents a Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) sponsored study to create a model that reflects bicyclists perceptions of how well they perceive a shared use path adjacent to a roadway to meet their needs. Through this research, a user validated level of service (LOS) modelfor shared use paths adjacent to roadways (sometimes referred to as sidepaths) has been created. This resulting model will enable transportationprofessionals to translate geometric, physical and operational characteristics of a sidepath into a reliable level of service measure for the proposed facility. Data for the new sidepath LOS model was obtained from the Video Ride for Science (VRFS) 2009 event, held at the Museum of Science andIndustry (MOSI) in Tampa, Florida. The data consists of participants perceptions of how well roadways met their needs as they viewed video simulations from a bicyclists-eye-view on the selected segments. The sidepath LOS model is based upon Pearson correlation analyses and stepwise regressionmodeling of approximately 1700 combined real-time video perceptions (observations) from VRFS 2009 participants. The study participants representeda cross section of age, gender, riding experience, and residency. This model has a fairly high correlation coefficient (R2=0.68) with the average observations, and is transferable to the vast majority of metropolitan areas in the United States.
Abstract