Stephanie Taylor
Philosophy 242
May 10 2019
Dr. Shane Epting
Bus Stop Safety Reflection
When I first read in our syllabus that we would be required to complete a project that has local implications I was excited. I genuinely enjoy researching and chose Civil Engineering as my major because there are a lot of problems I want to solve and I’ve been frustrated at not being able to do anything meaningful about them. Once I understood the scope of the project I started brainstorming potential topics.
I’m obsessed with birds and thought about doing something related to making buildings bird friendly (many migratory birds die every year in window strikes), but I knew Miranda has a phobia of birds. Miranda and I had taken a surveying lecture and lab together the previous semester and wanted to be in a group for this project, so I eliminated anything to do with birds from the list of potential topics. Before groups were officially formed we decided to suggest to our future teammates making bus stops safer or identifying and fixing accessibility violations on sidewalks in Las Vegas as topics.
The day groups formed Jenifer and Rafael wanted to join Miranda and me. Based on our proximity in class we had talked a few times so it was a good fit. Jenifer rides the bus sometimes and liked the bus stop redesign idea. Rafael commutes from Mesquite daily so he wasn’t personally invested in the idea but still thought it was a good choice.
We decided we would start out research by making a list of bus stops near UNLV where we had encountered issues and then to identify and categorize those issues then to place nearby problematic bus stops into those categories. At the very beginning of this stage I started walking to the bus stops to take photos of them, but quickly decided not to do that as it felt like an invasion of privacy to those people waiting at the bus stops. I also didn’t want to get my new phone stolen. Google Street View was an obvious solution to this issue because it automatically blurs the faces of humans in the photographs. A drawback to using Google Street View was that the photographs were limited to the time of day the Google vehicle took the photo (thus not showing direct sunlight on the stops in some cases) and also lacked detailed close up shots of some issues.
Another method we used to identify issues and poorly designed stops was to conduct informal oral interviews with those on or near campus who used the bus system. Three members of our group have used the busses so our input was also included. Because I have been on campus the longest and also live nearby I did the interviews, which mainly consisted of asking what the interviewee would change about the stops/routes and if they had felt unsafe at any of the stops near UNLV. The interviewees included two English adjuncts who walk/ride the bus and bicycle/ride the bus to UNLV as well as one of my neighbors living near UNLV who rides the bus. Their responses helped solidify the issues we had identified as well as drawing our attention to the frustration the UNLV users had about the UNLV Transit Center only serving the Centennial Express route.
We wanted to find out why the UNLV Transit Center only served the Centennial Express route as well as specific codes that the bus stops should follow according the Clark County laws. Unfortunately the only code information available online from Clark County and the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) concerned bike lanes and school bus stop requirements. We met with Lied Library’s Engineering Librarian to see if there were sources we could use that didn’t require us to physically go to a government facility to find these codes. While Sue Wainscott was extremely helpful (I’ll be meeting with her about my engineering senior project eventually), those codes are not available online, nor are UNLV’s planning decisions. Much like the other groups in our class who dealt with UNLV issues, we discovered a lack of transparency.
Because we couldn’t find Clark County specific codes we decided instead to focus on fixing the issues and integrating some of the best practices we had found from other cities that utilize busses. The National Association of City Transportation Officials, The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and the National BRT Institute websites all had helpful information. As a group we felt our initial recommendations concerning Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) were justified when the RTC decided to make Maryland Parkway a BRT corridor.
Overall this project helped me transition from a literary analysis based lense to an engineering focused style. Since returning to school after my English degrees I’ve only had to write one substantial paper in an ecology class, and the presentations I did in COM 101 were all based on personal interests and not engineering. Working on this project and talking to Sue Wainscott, the engineering librarian, has made me eager to start researching potential topics for my Civil Engineering senior thesis. While this glimpse into transportation engineering has been rewarding, I want to do something that combines my ecology background and love of animals, possibly making UNLV more wildlife friendly through bird safe windows and wildlife habitats. If I learn enough from a class on electronics for non-electrical engineers and self-study redesigning the trackers used on endangered birds would also be a possibility. Overall this project has reinforced that there is much potential good to be done with an engineering degree.
