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Princeton University Mobility Partner

Improving pedestrian and micromobility experiences on Princeton campus

Sector

Education

Region

North America

Timespan

2020-

High visibility crosswalks piloted to increase safety and visibility of students along key corridors. Credit: Gehl

As Princeton expands its campus, the University is undertaking a series of ambitious capital projects to improve connectivity. A central tenet is to ‘make walking irresistible’, while reducing the reliance on single occupancy vehicles on campus. Princeton partnered with Gehl to realize their campus-wide, human-first mobility vision.

Gehl identified construction-impacted routes and created a system of alternative pathways to help students and the campus community navigate safely and comfortably during ongoing construction. Credit: Gehl
Ongoing student engagement on campus aims to better understand their mobility experience. The goal is to assess how construction affects students and their daily movement around campus. This information will help identify improvements Princeton can implement to ease these impacts. Credit: Gehl

Smoother, safer, and more connected mobility

As micromobility ridership grows on Princeton campus, so do the challenges of navigating increasing construction traffic and pedestrian-vehicle tensions. These tensions risk creating a less welcoming environment for people walking and moving on wheels. 

To address this challenge, Gehl, in partnership with WSP, developed and executed a data collection plan to observe how people move through campus. This included a campus wide survey and data collection of user movement patterns and existing infrastructure to better understand the site’s unique challenges and opportunities. The resulting insights provided a strong data foundation to shape future design and circulation strategies on campus.

Findings from the surveys provide a snapshot of how people move today and helped establish seven ‘Key User Experience Insights’ to guide Princeton’s evolving micromobility policies and design interventions. From this data, Gehl proposed a pathway network focused on routes that remain intact during heavy periods of construction while leveraging underused corridors to fill mobility gaps. 

The team also created the ‘Princeton University Bike Facilities’ proposal — a comprehensive guide for improving bike and scooter facilities and user experience on campus. Additional projects have focused on street design and design of interior and exterior micromobility facilities.

The Princeton University Bike Facilities proposal is a guide for improving bike and scooter facilities and user experience on campus. Credit: Gehl

‘People-first’ includes you

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