The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released a proposed rulemaking outlining new national performance measures to assess travel reliability, congestion, and emissions: the National Performance Management Measures; Assessing Performance of the National Highway System, Freight Movement on the Interstate System, and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program.  It calls for an increased level of consistency, transparency and accountability in establishing and achieving targets for performance impacting congestion, system reliability, freight movement and economic vitality, and environmental sustainability. State DOTs will be expected to use the information and data generated as a result of the new regulations to make better informed transportation planning and programming decisions. The new performance aspects of the Federal-aid program would allow FHWA to better communicate a national performance story and more reliably assess the impacts of Federal funding investments.

Effect of Electronic Device Use on Pedestrian Safety: A Literature Review is a downloadable report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It examines pedestrian distraction, driver distraction, and pedestrian-vehicle interaction due to the use of electronic devices. A very limited number of studies have investigated the effect of electronic device used by pedestrians and drivers on pedestrian safety.

NHTSA recently released its Advancing Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety: A Primer for Highway Safety Professionals. This primer is a reference for an integrated and comprehensive effort to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and support broader transportation-related goals. It summarizes the most promising infrastructure treatments and behavioral programs for addressing specific safety problems and highlights how these approaches can be combined and implemented. It also identifies opportunities for various agencies to collaborate and combine their respective approaches and funding for a more comprehensive program. See http://bit.ly/1tvsBk9

The National Complete Streets Coalition has released the Best Complete Streets Policies of 2015 report. Each year the National Complete Streets Coalition analyzes, scores and ranks newly passed Complete Streets policies. In 2015, communities passed a total of 82 Complete Streets policies. These laws, resolutions, agency policies, and planning and design documents establish a process for selecting, funding, planning, designing, and building transportation projects that allow safe access for everyone, regardless of age, ability, income or ethnicity, and no matter how they travel. The report describes the 16 best comprehensive Complete Streets policies adopted in 2015 and the process for evaluating those policies.

As reported in The Atlantic’s CityLab blog, (http://bit.ly/1QQpdUx) Norway, population 5 million, will spend a massive 8 billion Norwegian Kroner ($923 million) creating 10 broad, two-lane, cross-country bike tracks in and near Norway’s nine largest cities, allowing longer-distance cyclists to travel with a speed and safety hitherto impossible. A key component of plans to slash Norway’s transit emissions by half, the bike highway scheme still faces some resistance. Not only is cycling in Norway relatively uncommon by Scandinavian standards, but the new highways will be constructed in a mountainous country that is cold and dark for much of the year.