Information and Transportation Choices, Long- and Short-Term, that Link Sustainability and Livability

This report demonstrates an approach to accessibility-based evaluation of transportation projects, using two plans in San Antonio, Texas. Land-use impacts of the transportation plans are first modeled using TELUM, a freely available transportation/land-use model funded by the Federal Highway Administration and chosen because of its availability to transportation planners in local practice. After projecting land-use implications, auto-based accessibility to work is modeled for the two sets of transportation plans. The first, the region’s long-term transportation plan adopted in 2014, engenders significant spreading of origins and destinations compared to the no-build scenario—land-use implications that are forecasted to reverse any accessibility gains associated with the transportation investment. By contrast, the land-use implications of the second plan, a series of expansions and improvements to a suburban ring road referred to as Loop 1604, are forecasted to magnify the accessibility improvements of the transportation investment by clustering land-uses compared to the no-build scenario. These analyses demonstrate that land-use implications are central to the capacity of transportation investments to improve accessibility. Evaluation of mobility in isolation threatens to assess as a transportation success an investment that failed to improve accessibility. The analysis is presented here as a tool for planners in practice to employ. The tool takes standard mobility analyses as an input and produces an accessibility forecast. This approach can help ensure that transportation planning advances accessibility, transportation’s fundamental purpose.

• Record URL:
  http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/nextrans/assets/pdfs/new/111UMY2.1%20Information%20and%20Transportation%20Choices,%20Long-%20and%20Short-Term,%20that%20Link%20Sustainability%20and%20Livability_final%20report_Levine.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

  College of Architecture and Urban Planning
  Ann Arbor, MI  United States  48109

  NEXTRANS

  Purdue University
  3000 Kent Avenue
  Lafayette, IN  United States  47906-1075

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Merlin, Louis
  • 0000-0002-9267-5712
  • Levine, Jonathan
  • Grengs, Joe
• Publication Date: 2016-12-16

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 27p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Land use; Long range planning; Mobility; Quality of life; Short range planning; Sustainable development; Transportation planning
• Identifier Terms: TELUM (Computer model)
• Geographic Terms: San Antonio (Texas)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01628899
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: NEXTRANS Project No. 111UMY2.1
• Contract Numbers: DTRT12-G-UTC05
• Files: UTC, TRIS, RITA, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Mar 15 2017 5:01PM