Economic Assessment of Access Management Projects in the Houston, Texas, Region

Abstract

The goal of the access management study of the Houston–Galveston Area Council in Texas, was to examine the effects of recommended improvements before, during, and after project implementation in three areas: operations (traffic flow, intersection delay, and corridor delay), safety (crash frequency, crash rates, and comparisons with state averages), and economic (comparison of taxable sales receipts and control for other economic factors occurring during those times). This paper focuses on an economic assessment that was not addressed by previous studies and on local concerns about the economic impacts of access management. This economic evaluation methodology focused on collection and analysis of taxable sales data to examine possible changes in business activity before, during, and after any implemented access management improvements for various classes of businesses in the corridor study areas. Three corridors, consisting of principal arterials in a large urban area with retail and residential development, were studied. The trends from the three corridors studied suggested that business sales increased at a greater rate along these corridors than in the adjacent control zip code analysis zone. The data showed that overall economic activity in the three corridors was not negatively affected by the implementation of access management. Although confounding factors (Hurricanes Rita and Ike and the economic recession of 2007 to 2009) were in play in an examination of economic impacts during these types of projects, the results of this evaluation indicated that corridor economic activity typically remained steady, and in many cases, increased after access management projects were implemented.

Quantifying Access Management on Arterial Roadways

“…The economics-based literature indicates that access management projects, including median installations and driveway restrictions, have little to no negative impact on the property value or vitality of adjacent businesses ( 11 , 12 ). Additionally, a previous study of driveway restriction impacts on corner lot developments suggests that when a minor roadway access is present, providing unrestricted access to the major roadway does not reduce the amount of travel time required to enter and exit the development, particularly at higher roadway volumes ( 13 ).…”

An Examination of the Safety of Signalized Intersections in Consideration of Nearby Access Points

“…Additionally, arterial highways have been shown to have significantly higher travel speeds as well as better traffic levels-of-service on well-managed corridors ( 10 ). Lastly, when considering the resultant effects on roadside businesses, studies have demonstrated that well-managed roadways have little to no impact on the financial outcome of the businesses as well as the overall customer satisfaction at the establishment ( 11 – 13 ).…”

An examination of the safety of signalized intersections in consideration of nearby access points

“…The next section is the summary of data integration process before obtaining the final data set. The chapter concludes with the summary statistics of all variables that were tested in this study, including the crash data and the roadway characteristics 1997, Riffkin, et al 2015, Benz, et al 2015, Shiri, et al 2018.…”