Poster: A/B Street: What if that on-street parking was a bike lane?
Abstract: A/B Street is a computer game exploring low-cost transportation changes to a city, such as transforming on-street parking into bike lanes. OpenStreetMap and existing trip demand models are used to build a highly detailed, interactive traffic simulation with individual drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, and buses negotiating around lanes, traffic signals, and parking lots. Players modify the map by reallocating lanes, adjusting speed limits, and modifying traffic signal timing. They then repeat the simulation with their changes, evaluating the impact on travel times for individual agents and entire groups. The game contains time series plots and layers showing delay, throughput, and parking availability, all updated in real-time. This lets players quickly iterate on proposed changes. Unlike existing simulators, A/B Street is open source (https://github.com/dabreegster/abstreet) and has a carefully designed user interface. Unlike other city simulation games, it models real cities in as much detail as open data-sets allow. The project has three purposes: 1) Encourage citizens to propose much more specific ideas to government, already backed up with an initial traffic impact study 2) Empower cycling, transit, and walkability advocacy groups with new tools and visualizations 3) Help governments communicate their decisions to citizens in a way that lets individuals evaluate the impact on their personal commute A/B Street is built for Seattle, with ongoing work to explore Stay Healthy Streets and mitigations for the West Seattle bridge closure. Any city with adequate OpenStreetMap coverage can be imported.
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