Daniel B. Hess
Associate Professor
office: 291 Hayes Hall
phone: 716.829.2133. ext. 202
email: dbhess@buffalo.edu
Education
B.S. (civil and environmental engineering), Clarkson University
M.U.P., University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Ph.D. (urban planning), University of California, Los Angeles
Courses
Dr. Hess’ teaching portfolio includes both required and elective courses in the undergraduate and graduate curriculums; many of his courses focus on planning practice and its relationship to the built environments of cities and regions. Dr. Hess teaches Evolution of Urban Structure, a core course that examines the history of cities and the history of planning, and Transportation, Land Use, and Urban Form, a course examining the complex relationship between the built form of our cities and their transportation systems. In the undergraduate curriculum, he teaches Visions of the City, which exposes students to various viewpoints on urban and environmental topics.
Research
Central to Dr. Hess’ research agenda is interpreting how the built environment of cities (and the public policies that support this form) influences travel behavior. He uses an array of research methods to interpret how policies affect travel choices and how methodologically we can best analyze urban spatial dynamics. Access to employment for welfare recipients and low-wage workers is one of Dr. Hess’ concerns, and he has conducted evaluations of policy and practice in California and New York. Dr. Hess is particularly interested in transit system performance and alternative transit funding arrangements, and he has conducted evaluations of employer and university transit pass programs.
Public service
Dr. Hess consults with federal, state, and local agencies so that his research can lead to more effective planning. Dr. Hess recently was part of a team that explored design concepts and programs for adding transit-oriented development along Buffalo’s Metro Rail corridor. He currently has a grant from the Mineta Transportation Institute to investigate the barriers that keep older adults from riding traditional fixed-route transit. He also won a grant from the Federal Transit Administration to investigate how public involvement can be used to expand alternative transportation financing schemes.
Selected publications
- “Bus Rapid Transit Identity: An Overview of Current “Branding” Practice” (with Alex Bitterman) (2008). Journal of Public Transportation. Vol. 11. No. 2.
- “Bus Rapid Transit Identity Meets Universal Design” (with Alex Bitterman) (2008). Disability and Society Vol. 23. No. 5.
- “Floating Ramps” (2007). Multi: The Journal of Plurality and Diversity in Design. Vol. 1. No. 1.
- “Multi-modal Mass Evacuation in Upstate New York: A Review of Disaster Plans from Select Areas” (with Julie C. Gotham) (2007). Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Vol. 4 No. 3.
- “Impact of Proximity to Light Rail Transit on Station-Area Property Values in Buffalo” (with Tangerine M. Almeida) (2007). Urban Studies. Vol. 44. No. 5/6.
- “Security on Buses and Trains: Guarding the Nation’s Public Transit Systems Against Terrorist Attacks” (2006). Journal of Security Education. Vol. 1. No. 4.
- “Transportation Beautiful: Did the City Beautiful Movement Improve Urban Transportation?” (2006). Journal of Urban History. Vol. 32. No. 4.
- "Transformation of Spatial Data to a New Zone System: A Survey of Metropolitan Planning Organizations" (2007) Environment and Planning B, Vol. 34.
- "Floating Cars" (2006) Access, No. 28.
- "Governmental Subsidies for Public Transit: History, Current Issues, and Recent Evidence" (with Peter Lombardi) (2005) Public Works Management and Policy, Vol. 10, No. 4.
- "Access to Employment for Adults in Poverty in the Buffalo-Niagara Region" (2005). Urban Studies Vol. 42, No. 7.
- "Light Rail Lite or Cost-Effective Improvements to Bus Service? Evaluating the Costs of Implementing Bus Rapid Transit" (with Brian D. Taylor and Allison C. Yoh) (2004) Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1927.
- [Awarded the 2006 Best Published Paper by the Region 2 University Transportation Research Center.]
- "Waiting for the Bus" (with Jeffrey Brown and Donald Shoup). (2004). Journal of Public Transportation. Vol. 7, No. 4.
- "Policy Support for and Barriers to Inner-City Transit-Oriented Development: A Literature Review" (with Peter Lombardi). (2004). Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1887.
- “Measuring the Role of Transportation in Facilitating the Welfare-to-Work Transition: Evidence from Three California Counties” (with Evelyn Blumenberg). (2003). Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1859.
- "Fare-Free Public Transit at Universities - An Evaluation” (with Jeffrey Brown and Donald Shoup). (2003).Journal of Planning Education and Research. Vol. 23, No. 1.
- [Awarded the 2004 Chester Rapkin Prize by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning for the Best Paper published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research Vol. 23].
- “Increasing Transit Ridership: Lessons from a Survey of Successful Transit Systems in the 1990s” (with Hiroyuki Iseki, Brian Taylor, and Allison Yoh). (2002). Journal of Public Transportation. Vol. 5. No. 3
- “Traditional Neighborhoods and Automobile Ownership” (with Paul Ong). (2002). Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1805
- “The Effect of Free Parking on Commuter Mode Choice: Evidence from Travel Diary Data” (2001). Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1753
- “Unlimited Access” (with Jeffrey Brown and Donald Shoup). (2001). Transportation. Vol. 28, No. 3
Selected activities, honors, awards
Board of Advisors, Center for Transportation Excellence; Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy Design Review Committee; Chester Rapkin Prize; UB Exceptional Scholar Award; Dwight D. Eisenhower Fellow, Federal Highway Administration; Research Affiliate, UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies (UCLA) and Mineta Transportation Institute (San Jose State University)
