Keywords: pedestrian planning, accessibility

The fundamental dilemma in attempts to make urban development less dependent upon mobility by car is the inability of alternatives to match the quality of accessibility provided by private motorized transport. Failure to recognize this means that bringing about environmentally more sustainable urban mobility patterns is only possible at economic, social, and political costs that are unacceptable in most societies. In this paper we identify and discuss ways out of this dilemma, in the form of solutions that pursue the goal of increasing both sustainability and accessibility. We start by contending that what people ask is not a generic mobility, but rather opportunities to participate in spatially disjointed activities. Accordingly, accessibility should be defined as the amount and the diversity of 'spatial opportunities' that can be reached within a certain amount of time. Solutions to the accessibility - sustainability dilemma building upon this perspective (that is, planning concepts, policy measures) have been the object of recent research at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and are discussed and we look for, and find, evidence of the feasibility of these solutions in the actual trends in the Amsterdam urban region. Some policy implications of the findings are discussed.

They define accessibility as the “amount of `spatial opportunities' that can be reached within a certain amount of time,” an idea that matches my intuition. They base this on three assumptions about human behaviour: (a) For the most part people travel not just for the sake of it, but in order to participate in spatially disjointed activities (for example, living, working, shopping, visiting in different places); (b) People want to have a choice among as large a number and as diverse a range of activities as possible; (c) Travel costs, and particularly travel time rather than travel distance, set a limit to these possibilities (in the form of total daily travel-time budgets, travel-to-work time budgets, etc.). They also aim for a synergy with sustainability, and express their goal as “Developing conditions for as large as possible a share of the more environmentally friendly modes in urban mobility, while at the same time maintaining, and possible increasing, the amount and the diversity of activity places that can be reached within an acceptable travel time.” They note that “only activities with middle to high spatial reach and low intensity of use (for example, living, working, or recreating in low densities) are best served by the car system”... which would include hiking, I suppose. “[T]he most significant policy dealing with car environments has been the regulation of parking allowance, which has proved an invaluable tool in managing the accessibility of locations, most notably within the municipality of Amsterdam.” They close with an interesting note: they call the transport system the supply of mobility, and land-use patterns are the origin of the demand for mobility. It's an interesting and relevant labelling.

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, accessibility

Keywords: accessibility, land use transport link

This report describes an extensive literature study and three case studies aimed at reviewing accessibility measures for their ability to evaluate the accessibility impacts of national land-use and transport scenarios, and related social and economic impacts. Several activity- and utility-based accessibility measures were computed to analyse job accessibility by car and public transport in the Netherlands for: (1) the (base) year 1995, (2) a Trend, or business-as-usual, scenario, representing the continuation of (restrictive) Dutch land-use policies and historical land-use trends for 1995-2020, (2) a Tolerant scenario, representing a land-use scenario, in which consumers' housing preferences determine land-use developments for 1995-2020. The scenarios are based on calculations using national land-use models and a national transport model. The main conclusion arising from this study is that the current Dutch practice of evaluating the (infrastructure-based) accessibility impacts of (land-use) transport projects, plans or scenarios can be improved by estimating activity-based accessibility measures, using existing land-use and transport data, and/or models. Activity-based accessibility measures are very well able to analyse accessibility impacts, satisfactorily incorporate the different components of accessibility (i.e. the transport, land-use, temporal and individual components) and serve as a useful tool for analysing social impacts. Utility-based accessibility measures may provide a useful basis for economic evaluations of land-use transport scenarios, but further research is necessary to analyse the added value to existing evaluation methods.

Keywords: transport modelling, accessibility

Keywords: transport modelling, accessibility

Efforts to improve transportation choices and enhance accessibility at the neighborhood level have been hampered by a lack of practical planning tools. This paper identifies the factors that contribute to accessibility at the neighborhood level and explores different ways that planners can evaluate neighborhood accessibility. A gap between the data needed to describe important accessibility factors and the data readily available to local planning departments points to two complementary strategies: a city-wide approach using available data and geographic information systems to evaluate accessibility for neighborhoods across the city, and a neighborhood-specific approach to building a detailed accessibility database. Examples of both are presented.

Keywords: transport modelling, accessibility

Keywords: accessibility, finance

detailed annotation

Keywords: urban planning, equity, transport planning, general interest, sociology, streets, pedestrian planning, accessibility, urban design

Keywords: urban planning, accessibility

Some interesting thoughts. 1) Their “compact city” policy seems to have led to a polycentric region, with the edge regions (at the boundary of the dense inner city and the car-oriented outer world) developing into subcentres. Most of this is due to earlier policies of motorway expansion and subcentre promotion. However, public transport patronage has risen. 2) Public transport expansion has been less effective than changes in urban form. Expansion to new developments has not proven feasible, due to chicken-and-egg issues. 3) The a,b,c location policy aimed to force employers with large numbers of employees/visitors to take class A sites, defined as having good public transport facilities running in several directions, and with very strict parking place supply. Class B and C sites have softer parking regimes and siting requirements. It's a national policy. While it has been evaluated as a failure (mostly due to application to only 15% of all locations, since it only applies to new developments), it is continuing.

Keywords: urban planning, transport planning, parking, accessibility

Keywords: congestion pricing, equity, accessibility

Keywords: congestion pricing, equity, accessibility

Keywords: transportation demand management, bicycle planning, pedestrian planning, transit, urban form, parking, urban economics, finance, prioritisation, accessibility

The concepts `accessibility' and `mobility' are central to urban and transport planning, and although they are often used interchangeably, they convey fundamentally different concepts. For example, mobility, especially when excessive, can have a negative connotation, whereas accessibility is always seen as making a positive contribution to a community. In investigating the relationship between mobility and accessibility it emerges that planning policies which favour the one, act against the other, and the two can be seen as opposites.

Keywords: transport modelling, accessibility

Keywords: land use transport link, accessibility