Field Trip

The first assignment is a group assignment, to go out and observe key street cross sections and intersections nearby in Cambridge. This assignment gives you a chance to observe and think about how people, different travel modes, infrastructure, and neighboring land uses interact in a real, live place. You will not only look and see what is going on, but also start to become familiar with how "little numbers" translate to real-world conditions: what does 800 cars/hour look like vs. 800 people riding the T, and what impact do these differences have on the nature of the urban scene? You should become familiar with basic ideas like level of service, saturation flow rate, capacity, speeds, flow, and mode share (see Meyer and Miller, Chapter 3). We want you to think about how you measure and what you measure, and what impact this has on the transportation planning process and built outcomes.