Pedestrian Overcrossings: The Bad, the Ugly, and the Mildly Acceptable (Featuring Las Vegas!)

Today's video lays out a typology of pedestrian overcrossings (i.e. pedestrian bridges or ped overpasses) and reviews the reasons we build them (as well as urbanist arguments against them.) Finally, your intrepid host heads out to the field to film some of the world's busiest ped bridges in their natural environment: Las Vegas Boulevard, AKA The Strip.

Along the way we review:

a variety of pedestrian bridges in Portland, Oregon (as well as an Everett, Washington rail station and a super fun example in Tucson, Arizona)
NCHRP 562, the pedestrian crossing analysis methodology that's been ubiquitous in transportation planning and engineering for sever years
research on how well pedestrians understand how traffic signals work and who has the right of way in certain situations

And finally, we do some data collection and math on what could be considered the world's busiest signalized intersection, Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. The pedestrian bridges were built in the early 1990s, but how would the intersection function today if you took away the overcrossings?

And, as an aside, we explain the absurd traffic levels at Tropicana (and Flamingo) by quickly running down the list of the largest hotels in the world (or at least the US), including the MGM Grand, the City Center (Aria), the Mandalay Bay, the Excalibur, the Luxor, the New York New York, the Park MGM, the Venetian and Palazzo, the Bellagio, and Caesars Palace. And don't forget massive trip generation at Harry Reid International Airport, Allegiant Stadium, and T-Mobile Arena!

Resources:
NCHRP 562 https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Driver and Pedestrian Comprehension of Pedestrian Law and Traffic Control Devices (JOHN E. TIDWELL AND DEVIN P. DOYLE) https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs...

Image Credits:
All from yours truly (and Google!)

Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (YouTube music library)

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Contact: nerd4cities@gmail.com