UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

The Northeastern San Fernando Valley is a historic, passionate, and diverse equestrian community in suburban Los Angeles. It hosts approximately three-quarters of the equestrian population of the City of Los Angeles. Though the region has an extensive network of equestrian trails, many of these trails are unofficial, not clearly mapped, or lacking in safe infrastructure. Additionally, many community members have expressed concerns about future access to the trails given proposed land use changes. In response, the City of Los Angeles and the Office of Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who represents the Seventh Council District encompassing many of these neighborhoods, are working to improve equestrian mobility throughout this region and to other key recreational areas. To supplement this effort, I conducted a safety project to both understand the existing activity patterns of equestrians and to identify potential improvements to the network. This project seeks to answer the question: “What transportation safety improvements can be made to the equestrian network in the Northeastern San Fernando Valley?” In order to identify equestrian transportation safety improvements, I analyzed GIS data and qualitative information from equestrian community stakeholders, and reviewed equestrian best practices from official guidelines and from other equestrian communities. I then constructed a list of potential improvements which will aid Council District Seven in creating and maintaining a safer equestrian transportation network.

Caltrans District 7 freeway corridors require evaluation to determine their capacity to support effective, high-capacity regional bus-based trunk service. While freeways serve as the region’s mobility backbone, transit performance remains uneven due to institutional fragmentation and infrastructure constraints. This analysis identifies the conditions required for reliable, all-day service and applies them to a regional screening framework.The study uses a comparative case study approach, examining U.S. freeway corridors and international high-capacity busway systems using a consistent unit of comparison: Type 1 all-day trunk services. Quantitative performance indicators, including ridership, reliability, and cost efficiency, are paired with agency documentation and practitioner input to identify recurring drivers of performance.Five core factors govern corridor outcomes: right-of-way continuity, trunk consolidation, station interface and throughput, governance coordination, and terminal capacity. Right-of-way continuity defines the operating baseline, while station interface often becomes the primary constraint as demand increases.These findings are applied through a District 7 screening framework that evaluates segments based on Market Potential and Implementation Feasibility. The framework can be used to prioritize corridors for deeper technical study. Implementation requires coordinated governance across operators and early corridor-level branding to maintain service clarity and network legibility.

This capstone examines how Indian Railways allocates scarce track time between train operations and track maintenance. The same track that carries passenger and freight trains must also be made available for inspection, repair, and renewal. The study asks how institutional design and departmental incentives shape this allocation, and what changes can better align Operations and Maintenance with the wider goals of safety, reliability, and efficiency.The report uses a focused case-study method. It reviews Indian Railways’ rules on rolling block planning, line capacity, and maintenance access. It then studies six heavily used corridors through six indicators: passenger punctuality, freight speed, maintenance blocks granted against demand, block productivity, block overruns, and track-related failures. It also draws lessons from Britain, Japan, and India’s Dedicated Freight Corridor experience.The main finding is that the current system produces a stable but inefficient outcome. Trains continue to run and maintenance continues to happen, but both take place under congestion, rationing, repeated adjustment, uneven productivity, and weak commitment to planned blocks. The evidence shows that the problem is not simply too many trains or too few maintenance blocks. It is a governance problem. Departments work with different information, face different targets, and often protect themselves through defensive behavior.The report recommends a corridor-level pilot to make track-time decisions more credible. The pilot would require clearer maintenance requests, stronger commitment as execution approaches, visible tracking of deviations, recovery of lost maintenance time, and KPIs that measure not only block grants but also execution quality and corridor outcomes.

Biking is a crucial mobility option for cities as it is dramatically more space-efficient than cars. Los Angeles, however, has failed over the last ten years to increase the viability of biking, as the number of cyclist deaths and serious injuries has not changed, while ridership has stagnated, and may be decreasing. One reason for this may be that LA’s bike infrastructure planning does not take into account where people are actually biking. This project examines the many benefits that an understanding of bike ridership patterns can provide for bike infrastructure planning. In order to estimate LA’s bike ridership, several data sources are analyzed through spatial, temporal, and longitudinal lenses. One key source of data was recorded trip data from Metro Bike Share, Los Angeles’s rentable bike share program. I find that bike share users exhibit travel patterns that closely resemble those of other cyclists within the same areas, suggesting that bike share data can serve as a useful proxy for broader ridership trends. Further, this report shows how bike ridership data can enable cities to invest proactively in areas where ridership is growing, build adaptively around shifting time-of-day trends, prioritize important connectivity bottlenecks, and identify interventions that will impact the greatest number of cyclists. For two examples, Koreatown exhibits the most nighttime ridership and areas around UCLA and USC exhibit the fastest-growing ridership compared to all other LA neighborhoods. Finally, ridership volume is a key factor in understanding cyclist risk, and in strategically leveraging the “safety-in-numbers” phenomenon for cyclists.

This capstone evaluates the effectiveness of three residential intersection treatments, all-way stop control, neighborhood traffic circles, and mini-roundabouts, in reducing vehicle speeds, a key factor in traffic safety. In response to growing cut-through traffic on residential streets and the City of Los Angeles’ efforts through Vision Zero and the Mobility Plan, this study combines a literature review with a before-and-after analysis of 33 intersections across the city using weighted averages and paired t-tests. Results show mixed outcomes for all-way stop conversions, with some intersections showing reduced speeds and others showing little change or increases, likely due to limited driver compliance. Neighborhood traffic circles, on the other hand, consistently reduced both average and 85th percentile speeds, especially at locations with greater physical deflection, confirming their effectiveness as a traffic calming tool. Mini-roundabouts, while promising in the literature, showed modest results in this study due to a limited sample size. Overall, the analysis finds that physical design features, such as center island size and narrower travel paths, more reliably slow traffic than signs and paint alone. Based on these findings, the capstone recommends coupling all-way stops with midblock treatments, expanding the use of traffic circles with improved geometric design, and piloting additional mini-roundabouts on higher-volume Neighborhood Enhanced Network corridors. These strategies can help Los Angeles retrofit its residential streets to reduce vehicle speeds, improve safety, and better support walking and biking, especially in neighborhoods facing growing traffic impacts from cut through drivers.

This report examines the growing yet understudied phenomenon of urban vehicle residency, wherein economically active individuals, including professionals, retirees, and students—reside in personal vehicles due to housing constraints and shifting employment norms. Despite their stable engagement in urban economies, these residents are systematically excluded from infrastructure access through restrictive parking policies and service models misaligned with their needs. Using ethnographic interviews and spatial analysis, the study identifies three distinct resident typologies: Strategic Budgeters, Lifestyle Optimizers, and Self-Sufficient Nomads. While their motivations vary, all emphasize the need for legal, safe parking and basic infrastructure, while expressing resistance to institutionalized or service-heavy programs. The report reframes vehicle residency as a form of housing innovation and proposes the adaptive reuse of underutilized municipal parking garages as a scalable, infrastructure-based intervention. Garages provide environmental protection, utility access, and operational advantages over street parking or crisis-response models. A user-informed, three-tiered service model is introduced, alongside a spatially driven site selection strategy. A policy framework, drawing from carshare parking regulation, outlines steps for regulatory integration, stakeholder engagement, and interagency coordination. This model offers a cost-effective, inclusive alternative to enforcement-centric approaches. By leveraging existing infrastructure to accommodate diverse housing strategies, the findings contribute to urban planning literature on informal housing, mobility, and infrastructure adaptation.

This study evaluates the impacts of pedestrianizing a segment of Broxton Avenue in Westwood Village, Los Angeles. Broxton Plaza was developed as a through-block pedestrian plaza to promote walkability, support local businesses, and revitalize Westwood’s identity as a pedestrian-oriented college town, especially in lieu of the upcoming Metro D Line, and 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.For this research, a variety of methods were used including surveys, interviews, counts, and field observations between January 2025 to May 2025. The analysis focused on the plaza’s impacts on pedestrian activity, business engagement, traffic and delivery logistics, design and accessibility, transit and traffic patterns, event programming, and overall community perception.Key findings include strong support for the plaza with survey respondents rating its impact on Westwood an average of 4.45 out of 5, which indicates a highly positive perception of its contribution to the neighborhood. There is a significant increase in foot traffic and observed families. The community feedback highlighted the need for more seating, shade, signage, seasonal decorations, sidewalk improvements for wheelchair users, public art, a loading zone or rideshare location, and public restrooms on event days. Businesses and community members called for stronger events programming, marketing, and UCLA engagement. There is also a need to consider long-term impacts like reducing vacancies, and the potential displacement of smaller businesses. An “Entertainment Zone” under SB969 is also under consideration as a promising activation tool that allows monitored outdoor drinking.Recommendations are grouped into policy reform, design improvements, community programming, business support, and marketing strategies, including the planned northward expansion of the plaza ahead of the 2028 Olympic/Paralympic Games. Broxton Plaza represents a critical step towards a more walkable and community-focused Westwood Village. With continued investment, responsible governance, and collaboration with UCLA and Westwood organizations, the plaza has major potential to become a model for pedestrian-first urban revitalization in Los Angeles.

This report directly supports San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA)’s equity goals by identifying past inequities in service delivery, planning, and community engagement––particularly during the city’s transition from private railway companies to publicly funded municipal transit. This report focuses on the priority neighborhoods Lakeview, Oceanview, Merced Heights, and Ingleside Terraces (LOMI), home to multigenerational communities of color. Many residents in these areas are homeowners but may have limited disposable income, which can create financial challenges. To understand how access to public transportation has been shaped by past SFMTA decisions, a qualitative analysis of historical documents, books, and digital archives was conducted to analyze public transit developments in LOMI neighborhoods between 1938 and 1971. This research was complemented by ten interviews with current and former residents capturing personal narratives often absent from institutional records. Archival research revealed limited engagement between SFMTA and LOMI residents during planning decisions within this time period. Interviewees for the study shared their concerns on accessing basic needs, safety while boarding buses, and the decline of Black residents in LOMI. Interviewees did highlight the improvement in reliability, frequency, and cleanliness of Muni service over the past few decades. Several policy recommendations were identified to improve community engagement going forward. We recommend SFMTA (1) send representatives to interact with community members at intercept events, (2) implement a ‘no-wrong door’ approach, (3) expand accessibility efforts for elderly and disabled residents, (4) increase accessibility to essential services, and (5) improve engagement with non-English speakers.

In 2016, the City of Los Angeles Planning Commission produced the Mobility Plan 2035, an element of the General Plan, which includes bicycle path projects. The city of Los Angeles has struggled to implement the Green Network (Class I Bicycle Path Network) included in the Mobility Plan 2035 and disproportionately distributes cycling infrastructure and green space to more affluent, White neighborhoods. This project aims to answer two research questions: What is the state of existing bicycle path infrastructure in the city of Los Angeles? Given the city’s goals and plans related to bicycle path infrastructure, how should the agency prioritize projects? To answer these questions, I draw on other infrastructure prioritization models and the goals of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) to develop a model for prioritizing projects. The model most heavily weights the Equity, Safety, and Network Expansion aspects of projects. It also prioritizes bicycle path segments that would score well on competitive state grants such as the Caltrans Active Transportation Program. The final weighted model better prioritized bicycle path segments crossing through census tracts with high Equity Index scores. Even with this priority, the bicycle path segments with priority scores in the top quintile are still evenly distributed across the city of Los Angeles.This modeling effort highlights the importance of translating the city’s goals into quantifiable measures that provide LADOT with the information necessary to strategically prioritize its infrastructure investments. To improve future prioritization models, I recommend that LADOT focus on collaborating with other departments and community stakeholders to better understand each path segment, including cost-benefit analyses as part of the planning process, and expanding this modeling effort to other assets included in LADOT’s Capital Infrastructure Plan.

This research assesses how the City of Oakland is meeting the basic transportation needs of its residents, defined by their ability to safely and comfortably use critical infrastructure such as sidewalks, roads, street lighting, street trees, and curb ramps. The study investigates the relationship between neighborhood demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and the quality and availability of transportation assets, aiming to determine if these resources are distributed equitably.The analysis utilized geospatial datasets on pavement condition, curb ramp ADA compliance, sidewalk integrity, and street tree conditions. These factors were mapped and compared against OakDOT’s Priority Neighborhoods dataset, which assigns each of the City’s 116 census tracts an equity priority designation. Findings reveal inequities in infrastructure quality. Issues like deteriorating pavement, non-ADA-compliant curb ramps, and severe sidewalk damage are disproportionately distributed, with many lower equity priority neighborhoods unexpectedly displaying higher maintenance needs. However, closer examination showed that these issues in lower equity priority areas, particularly in the hilly neighborhoods northeast of the I-580 freeway, are significantly influenced by environmental factors such as steep and uneven slopes. Higher equity priority neighborhoods face compounded disadvantages, including higher pollution exposure, increased ambulatory disability rates, and limited street tree coverage. These overlapping vulnerabilities highlight the need for continued targeted investment in high equity priority neighborhoods. The study recommends expanding asset data collection, developing tailored performance metrics, integrating these metrics into prioritization frameworks, and collaborating closely with community organizations. These measures aim to foster transparency and equity in Oakland’s transportation infrastructure planning and investments.