Proposal to Investigate the Flow of Traffic for the Intersection of North Perimeter Road and University Drive.
Introduction:
More and more students are being accepted into Cal Poly every year and the campus is building more on-campus housing to accommodate for this new population of students and to encourage students to be on-campus. This increase of students causes many problems because already the classes are impacted, the parking lots are impacted, and the streets are impacted. Furthermore, some argue that Cal Poly is reaching its limits and that the university cannot grow anymore. If this is the case, then we would have to make the small space we have …show more content…
The current intersection we have in place is called a four-way stop where traffic is controlled by human discretion of giving the right of way to pedestrians and whoever stops first. Consequently, if there is a constant flow of pedestrians, then the cars and bikes will have to yield to all of them. This causes drivers and bikers to weave in between the gaps of pedestrians which poses a hazard. Widening the roads is a solution to traffic congestion, but would not be suitable for this situation since there is no space to expand these roads. Most of the traffic flows north to east since the west side of North Perimeter Rd. is reserved for service vehicles and the south of University Dr. is a dead end. Therefore, by analyzing the flow of the traffic we can reroute the intersection to be more accommodable for two way traffic instead of four ways.
Proposed research methods:
My primary source of information will come from my interview with Professor Bertini since he understands both the intersection and how to manage traffic flow. My secondary research method will be a monograph produced by the Transportation Research Board called “Revised Traffic Flow Theory Monograph.” I will also use the Engineering Village database to find scholarly journals on different types of intersections, the traffic flow of each one, and the benefits vs. costs of each one.