Planning
Projects
This page shows a collection of my past planning work. Some of these projects were produced in collaboration with a team of students from different backgrounds in a studio setting while some were the outcomes of my research in transportation.
Newark Airport City Plan
The focus and goal of this report is to put forward a plan to reshape the Newark Liberty International Airport (Airport) and Dayton neighborhood into Newark’s Airport City - a mixed-use, economically robust neighborhood that leverages the airport’s success for the benefit of the entire city.
Inspired by the achievements of Changi Airport in Singapore, my teammates and I proposed this innovative concept of "An Airport City" that shows an alternative of the relationship between a city and its airport in today's US. An airport city is where the airport is part of the amenities which citizens are proud of, a major employment center, a shared public space, and a key transit hub that brings convenience to citizen’s life, and while all these amenities benefit the city, the city improves its connectivity, housing, economy, and environment to enhance its attractiveness to both its citizens and tourists. The city and the airport are not only connected by highway and cars, but also by reliable public transit and by pedestrian and cyclists accessible streets.
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This plan was completed under the guidance of Prof. Marilyn Taylor. It was presented to the City of Newark's Departments of Planning, Community and Economic Development, as well as other community stakeholders, as a valuable contribution to the upcoming Master Plan 360 for the City of Newark, and the future projects developed by the Port Authority team at EWR.
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Click on here or the image below to see the full document!
Neighborhood Plan For Pittsburgh, PA
This neighborhood plan was developed to form a long-range planning document for the Garfield, East Liberty, and Larimer neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Together with six other students from different backgrounds, The students analyzed the area’s existing conditions, reflected on how to equitably address issues and opportunities, and envisioned future states that would inform the plan’s final recommendations.
The recommendations work toward four goals: affordable housing, sustainability, inclusive economic development, and strong community networks. In its entirety, the plan aims to welcome positive change to the area while protecting the desires and needs of current residents.
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Click on here or the image below to see the full document!
How can we apply eye-tracking technology to improve the navigation experience for SEPTA riders?
I was involved in this project as the lead data analyst working for the Center for Safe Mobility at Penn.
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SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) is the main public transit provider in Philadelphia county. Like its peers on the east coast, it faces challenges with its aged stations and deteriorating infrastructures.
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Some of its stations (i.e. 15th Street station) were built in the early 1990s and slowly integrated and became a complicated facility today. Navigation in the 15th Street station can be extremely confusing even for locals.
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Through eye-tracking technology, we were able to study station users' eye movements while they interacted with very limited signages to find their way to certain transit services. This information helped us decide how helpful signage is and whether more signages should be added to certain locations in the station.
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This study was eventually integrated into SEPTA's wayfinding master plan.
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Click on here or the image below to learn more!
Visum & Vissim Class Project
During the transportation methods class, we examined the DVRPC's Visum model for Philadelphia. This includes looking into the traffic data, public transit data, demographic data in each zone. We also used tools like isochrone, flow bundles, screenlines, and desire lines to interpret its current situation and performed a 4-step model.
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This exercise helps me understand how the 4-step model simplifies travelers’ decision-making process and the complex relationship between land use, road/traffic conditions, and trips. Therefore, we should take the result of the model with a grain of salt. Meanwhile, by doing a more detailed and accurate mode split to better reflect the real conditions, we should be able to improve the model’s results.
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We also learned about how to use Vissim to investigate traffic patterns at the local level (corridor, intersection), and how to use it for elaborate street design and streetscaping. We made modifications to a corridor model on Baltimore Avenue and ran several simulations to observe changes in average travel time.
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The graph below is a screenshot of building a flow bundle on Walnut Street in Philadelphia.
Writing Samples From Multimodal Transportation Class
We learned about domestic and international multimodal transportation practices through 8 case studies. I wrote 2 memos and 1 final paper for this class.
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Memo #1 is about formulating specific recommendations for the city of San Francisco, CA, about whether and how to address parking challenges through changes to the Residential Parking Permit (RPP) program, metered parking, and residential zoning requirements.
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Memo #2 is about concerns on building a High-Speed Rail (HSR) system in California and whether and how we can maximize HSR's benefits. Some of these concerns can be addressed by strengthening the proposal's arguments (e.g., the one about demand forecast), while some require further investigation (e.g., the environment-related ones). There is a delicate balance between further increasing the cost, causing less harm to the environment, and reaching relatively maximized benefits; thus, extra caution is suggested when dealing with these concerns.
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The final paper is about interventions to further encourage the public transit ridership in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). These interventions include:
• Prioritize the construction of MRT line 1 and line 2
• Support the bus system transformation and invest in BRT
• Concentrate future development around transit stations
The first two interventions focus mainly on increasing public transit capacity supply to fulfill the vast travel demand that is currently being satisfied mainly through motorcycles and cars. The last approach focuses on increasing travel demand by creating new trip destinations through land development, meanwhile guiding the demand to public transit through providing a convenient transit network that connects trip origins with new and old trip destinations.
