Speaking

Road Safety Audits (RSAs) are practical, multidisciplinary tools that help agencies identify safety issues, understand roadway user needs and develop implementable recommendations. While RSAs are often associated with formal studies or large corridor efforts, they can also be right-sized to match the project purpose, available data, budget, timeline and desired outcome. This mobile workshop will give participants a hands-on opportunity to learn and apply the core principles of an RSA in a real-world setting.

The workshop will begin in a conference room with a brief overview of what an RSA is, when to use one and how the process is typically conducted. Participants will learn about the key steps of an RSA, including reviewing background data, assembling a multidisciplinary team, observing field conditions, identifying safety issues, developing recommendations and documenting findings. The discussion will also highlight how the process can be scaled up or down while still preserving the most important elements that make an RSA useful, credible and action-oriented.

Participants will then walk to a nearby site where they will apply RSA principles in the field. Using prompts, basic traffic and roadway data and an aerial map, attendees will observe the site from the perspectives of different roadway users, including people walking, biking, driving, accessing transit or using mobility devices. The field exercise will encourage participants to look beyond standard design features and consider user behavior, sight distance, speeds, crossings, comfort, accessibility, conflict points and opportunities for near-term or longer-term safety improvements.

After the field portion, the group will return to the conference room to discuss observations, compare findings and work through the next steps of the RSA process. Participants will translate field observations into potential safety issues, identify practical recommendations and discuss how recommendations may vary depending on project context, available funding and agency priorities. 

This session is intended to be interactive, practical and directly applicable to planning and public works practice. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of how RSAs work, how to tailor them to different community contexts and how to use field observations and limited data to develop meaningful safety recommendations.

Oregon is one of the leaders in the nation when it comes to climate-integrated planning. With the adoption of the Climate-Friendly and Equitable Communities (CFEC) rules and the rollout of the regional Comprehensive Climate Action Plan, the state has established an ambitious regulatory framework. how do we translate high-level mandates into measurable, project-level emission reductions?

This panel will present climate planning from state rulemaking to regional strategies and local technical execution. Ashley Bryers (Burgess & Niple) will discuss the current requirements and upcoming deadlines of the CFEC rules and how jurisdictions can align their land use and transportation systems with state-mandated targets. John Patrick (Burgess & Niple) will demonstrate a practical Vehicle Miles of Travel (VMT)-driven energy and emissions estimator tool developed for Hillsborough County, Florida. This tool offers a tactical middle ground for planners to input local VMT data to generate outputs for CO2, CH4, N2O and particulate matter (PM2.5). The panel will discuss how this localized approach to scenario testing can be used by planners to quantify the impacts of parking reforms, transit investments and micro mobility strategies in real-time.