When a new development occurs in an established urban area (eg: when an old building is replaced by an apartment block) is there a tendency for people to decrease automobile usage when public transport is readily available? If so, does anybody know of any journal articles / studies to show this? Is the reduction significant compared to a development where public transport is not as conveniently located?
Your help is much appreciated!
I do not know of any specific articles, but I have a few observations of my own based upon some new developments in Huntington, WV. The tendency to use public transportation in lieu of private vehicles seems to be tied to the existence of amenities surrounding the redevelopment site (shopping, offices, play, junk food, etc.) and the people moving into the new development. In some cases, people moving into a downtown or fringe redevelopment site that are from suburbia and live in their cars, will tend to use their cars, but not at the rate used in suburbia where nothing is within walking distance (too much zoning). Those folks moving into a redevelopment site from a different part of downtown will probably not drive much because many of them already used public transit. And of course there will be those who did not have a private vehicle anyway and will still use public transit. It has alot to do with the location of the site and its links to needed amenities.
The main question should why doesn't everybody have access to public transportation. Convienient public transportation would provide a cheap and equitable way to travel.
In Reply to: New Developments: Decreased Use of Cars when Public Transport is available posted by Jason Wittenberg on December 12, 1997 at 18:06:38:
John Holtzclaw of Sierra did a report establishing a statistical relationship between density, transit availability, and transit ridership. This was an initial step toward the development of Location Efficient Mortgage (LEM)programs, whereby homebuyers in transit accesible areas can qualify for a larger mortgage based on the likelihood that they will save money by using transit or bike/ped rather than exclusively their car.Originally posted by (User Above)
The Institute for Urban and Regional Development at UC-Berkeley has published a number of interesting studies related to this topic. : Two that might be relevant
A Study of Housing Built Near Rail Transit Stations: Northern California; and Travel Demand and the Three Ds: Density, Diversity, and Design. The address of the institute is: 316 Wurster Hall, U of CA, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Many of their conclusions support the well-established idea that higher densities near transit result in fewer vehicle miles of travel per capita. Good luck.
When a new development occurs in an established urban area (eg: when an old building is replaced by an apartment block) is there a tendency for people to decrease automobile usage when public transport is readily available? If so, does anybody know of any journal articles / studies to show this? Is the reduction significant compared to a development where public transport is not as conveniently located?
Your help is much appreciated!
It's late and I'm too lazy to look up the info, but STPP should have it. Check their website.
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