Towards a resource-efficient transport system
April 3, 2010
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Introduction
This report presents a summary of selected issues from the European Environment Agency Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism (EEA TERM) set of transport and environment integration indicators. It is not simply a replication of indicators but rather an attempt to put insights from the indicators into the context of efforts to develop European policy towards achieving a low-carbon transport system.
The objective of this report is to indicate some of the main challenges to reducing the environmental impacts of transport and to make suggestions to improve the environmental performance of the transport system as a whole. The report examines issues centred around transport and climate change, which need to be addressed in the coming years. These issues are derived partly from the policy questions that form the backbone of TERM and partly from other ongoing work at EEA. As with previous TERM reports, this report evaluates the indicator trends measuring progress towards…
Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions
April 2, 2010|Department of Transportation
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Executive Summary
Introduction
This study evaluates potentially viable strategies to reduce transportation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The study was mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act (P.L. 110-140, December 2007). The Act directed the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and consultation with the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), to conduct a study of the impact of the Nation’s transportation system on climate change and strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing GHG emissions from transportation. This study also examines the potential impact of these strategies on air quality, petroleum savings, transportation goals, costs, and other factors. Each GHG reduction strategy may have various positive impacts (including co-benefits) or negative impacts on these factors. Potential tradeoffs and interdependencies when reducing GHG emissions will need to be…
Minimum Parking Requirements, Transit Proximity and Development in New York City
April 2, 2010
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Introduction
Among the central policy goals of the current New York City mayoral administration is accommodating rapid projected population growth while simultaneously improving the City’s overall environmental performance, addressing externalities arising from traffic congestion and providing increased access to affordable housing. In support of these goals, the City has developed a long term sustainable growth plan, PlaNYC 2030 (City of New York, 2008), is engaged in an active land use and planning program, and is spending hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing the construction or preservation of income-restricted housing.
Potentially running counter to these related goals, however, is the longstanding requirement in the City’s zoning code that new residential construction in most neighborhoods be accompanied by a minimum number of off-street parking spaces. Such parking requirements, critics argue, could increase the cost of new housing by forcing developers to incur…
Penny Wise Pound Fuelish: New Measures Of Housing + Transportation Affordability
April 2, 2010
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Executive Summary
Penny Wise, Pound Fuelish serves as a guide to CNT’s H+T Index (www.htaindex.org), which includes 337 U.S. metropolitan regions. The Index demonstrates that the way in which urban regions have grown in the last half century has had negative consequences for many Americans:
The number of communities considered affordable drops dramatically in most regions when the definition of affordability shifts from a focus on housing costs alone to one that includes housing and transportation costs;
Families who pursue a “drive ‘til you qualify” approach to home ownership in an effort to reduce expenses often pay more in higher transportation costs than they save on housing thereby placing more, not less, stress on their budgets;
Residents of “drive ‘til you qualify” zones are most sensitive to jumps in gas prices because of the distances they must drive; and
The longer distances associated with sprawl also translate into more congestion on our highways, less…
Commuting in Belgian metropolitan areas: The power of the Alonso-Muth model
April 2, 2010
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Abstract
In order to understand patterns of urban commuter flows, insight is required into urban spatial structure (and vice versa). The present contribution first provides a concise overview of the theoretical perspectives from which economists and geographers approach commuting issues. Subsequently, the focus shifts to the classical spatial-economic urban models and how they explain commuter movements. We conduct a number of cluster analyses from which we are able to derive a commuting typology of city region areas. We conclude that distance (which also comprises journey time and proximity of traffic infrastructure), housing characteristics, housing environment, and income continue to play key roles in commuting patterns in the metropolitan areas under consideration.
The evolution of the commuting network in Germany: Spatial and connectivity patterns
April 2, 2010
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Introduction
Network concepts have received a great deal of attention in spatial economics in recent decades. Examples are the well-known ideas of the network economy (Shapiro and Varian 1999) and the knowledge economy (Cooke 2001). Networks are based on the existence of interactions (which may occur on multiple levels) between agents operating in a network, giving rise to synergistic effects. The effects of these interactions are oĕen investigated and modeled by considering, amongst other things, network externalities or spillover effects (Yilmaz et al. 2002). The labor market literature is no exception to this trend: spatial job matching processes have been widely studied in a social network framework (Montgomery 1991), while work-induced mobility (commuting) has been investigated in both an urban and a regional network context (e.g. Russo etal. 2007; ăorsen etal. 1999; Van Nuffel and Saey 2005).
The directionality of commuting Ĕows has clear implications for urban form and for…
Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach
January 1, 2010|Institute of Transportation Engineers, Congress for the New Urbanism
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This report has been developed in response to widespread interest for improving both mobility choices and community character through a commitment to creating and enhancing walkable communities. Many agencies will work toward these goals using the concepts and principles in this report to ensure the users, community and other key factors are considered in the planning and design processes used to develop walkable urban thoroughfares.
Public Transportation’s Role in Responding to Climate Change
January 1, 2010|Federal Transit Administration
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Data from National Transit Database, combined with Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency information, examines impacts of automobile, truck, SUV, and public transportation travel on the production of greenhouse gas emissions.
Bus and Rail Transit Preferential Treatments in Mixed Traffic
January 1, 2010|Transit Cooperative Research Program, Federal Transit Administration
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Summary
Transit preferential treatments are a key component to the provision of travel time savings and improved on-time performance for bus and rail systems operating in mixed traffic on urban streets. Rail systems operating on-street include both light rail transit and streetcar. Enhanced bus operations where transit preferential treatments are particularly critical include bus rapid transit and express bus.
Although transit preferential treatments on urban streets have been presented and reviewed with respect to their application and impact in several documents over the years there has not been a single, recent document that has addressed all of the potential treatments that have been or could be applied. This synthesis report provides such a document. Treat•ments that are addressed relate to both roadway segments and spot locations (intersections) and include the following:
Roadway Segments
Median transitway,
Exclusive lanes outside the median area, and
Limited stop…
Field Test Results of the Multimodal Level of Service Analysis for Urban Streets
January 1, 2010|National Cooperative Highway Research Program
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NCHRP Web-Only Document 158: Explores the result of a field test of the MMLOS in 10 metropolitan areas in the United States.
