Downtowns, Greenfields and Places In Between: Promoting Development Near Transit
May 29, 2013
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Introduction
Transit-oriented development (TOD) – typically defined as compact, mixed-use development within walking distance of a transit station – has emerged in recent years as a key strategy for fostering quality neighborhoods and reducing auto dependence. Despite the emphasis on TOD in many policy discussions, however, only limited information is available to help communities understand the likely development impacts of new transit investments. This report builds on a 2010 study by the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD), Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns along Three Recently Constructed Rail Lines, to examine the opportunities and challenges involved in promoting TOD in different types of neighborhoods, and the strategies that may be appropriate to catalyze TOD depending on the neighborhood context. By examining development patterns and public investment strategies through the lens of “development context” or “neighborhood type,” this report…
Linking Traffic Noise, Noise Annoyance and Life Satisfaction: A Case Study
May 7, 2013
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Introduction
Environmental noise, and persistent high levels of transportation noise in particular, have been shown to have considerable effects on human health and well-being [1,2]. According to the WHO, one third of the EU citizens are annoyed by environmental noise and about 25% of the EU citizens experience sleep disturbances due to environmental noise [1]. According to the first round of noise mapping in agglomerations and on major roads, around 56 million people within agglomerations and 34 million people outside agglomerations across the EU are exposed to noise levels above Lden 55 dB [3], a limit level that has been suggested by the WHO to protect the majority of people from being seriously annoyed [4]. Railway noise seems to be a less serious problem than road traffic noise as only 6.3 million citizens in agglomerations and 5.4 million along major railways outside agglomerations in the EU are exposed to noise levels exceeding Lden of 55 dB, according to the first noise…
Transit-Oriented Development in the Chicago Region: Efficient and Resilient Communities for the 21st Century
May 6, 2013
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Executive Summary
Transit-Oriented Development in the Chicago Region, 2000–2010
Mixed-use centers anchored by public transit are essential to the triple bottom line, or the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the Chicago Region. With the publication of GO TO 2040 in 2010, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) put forth a vision to grow the transit-oriented development (TOD) areas of the Region and make them communities of choice. In 2012 the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) built on this vision with the publication of Prospering In Place, which honored GO TO 2040 for its commitment to reconnect land use, transportation, and the economy, and recommended the locations in the Chicago Region that had the best prospects for growth—and hence warranted priority access to public and private resources. Prospering in Place was also a cautionary story of how a blueprint alone, without a place-based framework for development, will not reverse the…
Linking urban Transport And Land Use In Developing Countries
May 3, 2013
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Abstract
The mobility challenges of the developing world are considerably different than those in wealthier, advanced countries, and so are the challenges of coordinating transportation and land use. Rapid population growth, poverty and income disparities, overcrowded urban cores, poorly designed road networks, spatial mismatches between housing and jobs, deteriorating environmental conditions, and economic losses from extreme traffic by congestion are among the more vexing challenges faced by developing cities that could be assuaged through improved coordination of transportation and urban development. This is underscored by examples reviewed in this paper from South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, India, Africa, and South America. It is concluded that whatever is done to improve transportation and land-use integration must be pro-poor. The cardinal features of integrated and sustainable transport and urbanism everywhere—accessible urban activities and safe, attractive walking and…
The impact of transport, land and fiscal policy on housing and economic geography in a small, open growth model
May 3, 2013
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Abstract
This study proposes a spatial model to examine dynamic interactions among growth, economic geography, the housing market, and public goods in a small, open economic growth model. We emphasize the impact of transport, land and fiscal policy on the spatial economy. The economy consists of the industrial sector, housing sector and local public goods. The model synthesizes the main ideas in the neoclassical growth theory, the Alonso urban model and the Muth housing model within the neoclassical open, small-growth framework. We solve the dynamics of the economic system and simulate the model to demonstrate dynamic interactions among economic growth, the housing market, residential distribution and public goods over time and space. Our simulation demonstrates, for instance, that as the tax rate on land income is increased, the total capital stocks and the stocks employed by the housing and public sectors are increased, the land devoted to local public goods falls and land rents and…
An Agent-Based Model of Origin Destination Estimation (ABODE)
May 3, 2013
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Abstract
This paper introduces ABODE, an agent-based model for Origin-Destination (OD) demand estimation, that can serve as a work trip distribution model. The model takes residential locations of workers and the locations of employers as exogenous and deals specifically with the interactions between firms and workers in creating a job-worker match and the commute outcomes. It is meant to illustrate that by explicitly modeling the search and hiring process, origins and destinations (ODs) can be linked at a disaggregate level that is reasonably true to the actual process. The model is tested on a toy-city as well as using data from the Twin Cities area. The toy-city model illustrates that the model predicts reasonable commute outcomes, with agents selecting the closest work place when wage and skill differentiation is absent in the labor market. The introduction of wage dispersion and skill differentiation increases the average home to work distances considerably. Using data from Twin…
What is mixed use? Presenting an interaction method for measuring land use mix
May 3, 2013
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Abstract
In recent decades, the mixing of complementary land uses has become an increasingly important goal in transportation and land use planning. Land uses mix has been shown to be an influential factor in travel behavior (mode choice and distance traveled), improved health outcomes, and neighborhood-level quality of life. However, quantifying the extent to which a given area is mixed-use has proven difficult. Much of the existing research on the mixing of land uses has focused on the presence and proportion of different uses as opposed to the extent to which they actually interact with one another. This study proposes a new measure of land use mix, a land use interaction method—which accounts for the extent to which complementary land uses adjoin one another—using only basic land use data. After mapping and analyzing the results, several statistical models are built to show the relationship between this new measure and reported travel behavior. The models presented show the…
Microsimulation framework for urban price-taker markets
May 3, 2013
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Abstract
In the context of integrated transportation and other urban engineering infrastructure systems, there are many examples of markets, where consumers exhibit price-taking behavior. While this behavior is ubiquitous, the underlying mechanism can be captured in a single framework. Here, we present a microsimulation framework of a price-taker market that recognizes this generality and develop efficient algorithms for the associated market-clearing problem. By abstracting the problem as a specific graph theoretic problem (i.e., maximum weighted bipartite graph), we are first able to exploit algorithms that are developed in graph theory. We then explore their appropriateness in terms of large-scale integrated urban microsimulations. Based on this, we further develop a generic and efficient clearing algorithm that takes advantage of the features specific to urban price-taker markets. This clearing solution is then used to operationalize two price-taker markets, from two…
Why people use their cars while the built environment imposes cycling
May 3, 2013
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Introduction
Many studies have analyzed the relationship between the built environment and mode choice, but the underlying behavioral mechanisms remain somewhat less well understood. Higher densities, more diversity, and better local accessibility are often believed to result in less car use, more public transport, and more cycling and walking (for a more comprehensive review, see, e.g., Badoe and Miller 2000; Bartholomew and Ewing 2009; Crane 2000; Ewing and Cervero 2001; Handy 2002; Handy 2005; Stead et al. 2000; Stead and Marshall 2001; van Wee 2002; Van Acker and Witlox 2005). However, not all people that reside in high-density, diverse, and accessible neighborhoods travel by definition by public transport or walk and bike instead of using their cars. This is (partly) due to differences in more subjective and behavioral influences such as perceptions (Van Acker et al. 2010). It might be possible that one person perceives the built environment as unsafe, preventing him or her…
Measuring the impacts of local land-use policies on vehicle miles of travel: The case of the first big-box store in Davis, California
May 1, 2013
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Introduction
Concerns over climate change have brought new impetus to the goal of reducing vehicle travel through land-use policy. In California, for example, Senate Bill 375 (2008) led to the establishment of regional targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles and requirements that metropolitan planning organizations adopt land-use policies, among other strategies, that help meet these targets. While empirical evidence shows that residents drive less in communities with greater densities and mixes of land uses, local governments have little basis for knowing how much less their own residents will drive if they succeed in increasing densities or the land-use mix. At the local level, changes are usually incremental, occurring one project at a time within the context of the existing community, and neither one-size-fits-all elasticities based on cross-sectional studies (Ewing and Cervero, 2010) nor regional travel-demand models (Rodier, 2009) are likely to…
