Through the Academic Initiative, Li Chen worked on the West Side Manhattan Traffic and Transportation Study at NYCDOT, where she was supervised by Michael Griffith. This study examined traffic, pedestrian, bicycle and goods movement, safety, and land use issues in a rapidly evolving area on the edge of the region’s central business district. She was involved in many different aspects of this project, including organizing public outreach meetings and data collection activities, and analyzing changes in the area’s demography, traffic, and land uses. Her methodology was to assess existing (2006) and future (2016) conditions, identify issues and define transportation problems and deficiencies, and to develop short-term (1-3 years), medium- term (5-7 years) and long-term (8–10 years) improvement measures through consultation with communities.

Update

Currently, Li Chen is pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering at The City College, City University of New York. Her doctoral research topics include cost estimation and risk analysis of transportation capital projects, and evaluation of safety countermeasures and traffic calming measures. She wrote a paper entitled “Incorporating Risk of Cost Overruns into Transportation Capital Projects Decision- Making,” with Professor Joseph Berechman; it was published in the Journal of Transport Economics and Policy (JTEP) in January, 2011. During the 2009-2010 academic year, she worked on the project “Effectiveness of Traffic Calming Measures,” sponsored by the New York City Department of Transportation; her major task was the statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the various traffic calming measures and safety countermeasures in New York City. Her paper “Evaluating the Safety Impact of Bike Lanes in New York City” has been accepted by the American Journal of Public Health, and she is also working on other papers evaluating safety countermeasures in reducing pedestrian and vehicle crashes.