UCTC:New urbanism nice but won

The Spring 98 issue (#12) of ACCESS journal from the Univ Cal Transp Center reports a wide range of research projects that belie claims of the USEPA, transit-promoters and urban planners that denser, transit-oriented and gridtype development will reduce car use. Randall Crane UC-Irvine writes that the idea that auto travel will decrease with more compact land use “has proven so appealing that almost all discussions of the new designs report it as though it were a proven fact.” Research supporting this conclusion is either flawed or weak, he writes. It is often flawed because it overlooks the fact that people who like transit will tend to choose to live near transit, and people who like to bike will live near bikepaths, so the greater incidence of transit use near transit and bike use near bikepaths is quite misleading in predicting how far the provision of more transit or bikepaths will promote their use overall.

Using regression analysis on San Diego street patterns and travel diary data he could find no discernible relationship between street design and car trip levels or mode choice. Similarly higher density and more mixing of land uses as advocated by ‘new urbanist’ planners had no impact on car use or travel mode. The only relationship proven out was that traffic calming measures in residential neighborhoods tends to decrease car usage some, and encourage walking. Otherwise no impact.

Ruth Steiner of Univ FL studied neo-trad shopping streets around transit stops as compared to auto-oriented malls. She found they do generate somewhat more walking, but that few transit users shop, and demand for car-parking remains quite high. Most patrons still drive there. She says that designing a shopping center primarily for walkers and transit users will “doom the investment” in modern America.

Nu-Urbanista pike!

John Landis of UC-Berkeley reports on modeling of land use and travel impacts of (1) no change in major transp, (2) extending BART (heavy rail) and (3) building a toll road in Contra Costa Co in the East Bay area of N Cal. His conclusion is that the new rail line will have negligible impact on traffic and land use patterns. You guessed it — the strongest impact in doing all the things the neo-urbanists want is the toll road! The location of the interchanges of the toll road has a powerful effect, Landis concludes, in concentrating and densifying development, whereas the no-build and rail extensions are the sprawl producers.

“(M)ajor highway investments... have significant power to redistribute urban development at the sub-county level. Properly located (mwy) interchanges can help order new residential and commercial development (and) reduce sprawl. Of course the converse is also true: carelessly located (they) may contribute to sprawl. The ability of major transit investments to shape development... is much more limited.”

Another article concludes improved transit won’t help the poor get jobs. Cars remain their best bet.

Crane says pithily: “The cost of mass transit is ballooning out of proportion to expected benefits.”

All the researchers, and the center director Melvin Webber, who writes a nice editorial, express their esthetic support for new urbanist concepts and their disappointment in the empirical conclusions. But they say these fashionable landuse and planning designs simply can’t deliver on the promises of reducing car use or sprawl. (Contact Luci Yamamoto editor ACCESS 510 643 5454 access@uclink4.berkeley.edu)