VTPI NEWS
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Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
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Spring 2022 Vol. 22, No. 2
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New Publications
“Evaluating Transportation Equity: Guidance for Incorporating Distributional Impacts in Transport Planning,” ITE Journal, April 2022.
Transportation planning decisions can have significant equity impacts: they affect the allocation of public resources, economic opportunities, and quality of life. Most people care about these impacts and want their transportation system to be equitable. This article describes why and how practitioners can incorporate equity objectives into transportation planning. This article summarizes a comprehensive VTPI report of the same title.
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Published Elsewhere
Urban Transport Systems: A Transport Australia Society Discussion Paper, Engineers Australia.
This discussion paper, which incorporates VTPI research, highlights problems with the current transport planning paradigm. Here are key quotes:
"Attempts to “bust congestion” with major road widening projects have generally been unsuccessful... investment has been poorly targeted. Increasing capacity for urban road networks induces demand and is a major reason for increased traffic on the network..."
"There is little evidence to demonstrate increasing road capacity to reduce traffic congestion improves economic performance in cities. A focus on changes in access times for catchments would be more reliable..."
"The need for change is evidenced by the failure of past transport policies to address the challenge of climate change, deaths, and serious illness from vehicles emissions..."
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Urban Village Planning Checklist. Urban villages can maximize accessibility and inclusivity, helping residents be healthy, wealthy, and happy. Here are specific targets for planning them.
Urban Villages for People with Disabilities. Compact, multimodal urban villages can provide independent mobility for people with disabilities (PWD), ensuring that everybody can enjoy freedom, opportunity, and romance.
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Recent Events
Transportation Planning for Equity and Healthy Communities. Free webinar recording.
This National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health webinar examined how transportation planning decisions affect social equity and public health, ways to evaluate these impacts, and to better align transportation policies with community goals. This webinar explored various perspectives and impacts, and practical ways to incorporate equity and public health goals into policy and planning analysis. Presentation Slides.
Transportation Equity & Justice Webinar, with Todd Litman and Professor Mahtot Gebresselassie. YouTube video.
This presentation examines how transportation planning affects fairness, opportunity and health, and practical ways to ensure that individual, short-term decisions are aligned with a community’s long-term social and economic goals.
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Useful Resources
The 15-Mintue City. The 15-Minute City Project is designed to help access-focused urban transformations.
National Walkability Index, by the USEPA. This nationwide geographic data resource ranks block groups according to relative walkability. The National Walkability Index User Guide and Methodology describes how to use the index and the methodology used to derive the index and ranked scores for its inputs.
“Why the Pedestrian Dignity Movement Should be your Next Accessibility Cause,” Mashable, by Chase DiBenedetto. Decenter cars and recenter humans, says the person behind a viral TikTok account.
“IPCC Report: We Can’t Solve Climate Change Without More Walking,” StreetBlog USA, by Mike McGinn. Walkable communities are great for fighting climate change. “Integrated spatial planning to achieve compact and resource-efficient urban growth through colocation of higher residential and job densities, mixed land use, and TOD could reduce urban energy use between 23-26% by 2050 compared to the business-as-usual scenario.”
Street Space Allocation And Use In Melbourne’s Activity Centres by Chris De Gruyter, Seyed Mojib Zahraee and William Young. This study measured travel activity and road space allocation by mode in Melbourne, Australia. It found that pedestrian space is significantly undersupplied while car parking and shared general traffic lanes were oversupplied compared with their share of travel.
Streetspace Allocation Option Generation Tool, European Union’s MORE (Multi-modal Optimization of Roadspace in Europe) helps redesign, reallocate, or regulate streetspace to meet community goals.
“Decide and Provide”: Transport Modeling That Gives Us Choices, by Jarrett Walker. You can’t predict the future but you can predict a range of credible possibilities, and then think about which one you actually want.
The New Transportation Demand Management: An Implementation Guide for City Officials, Natural Resources Defense Council. This guide highlights effective and innovative approaches to increase transportation system efficiency and equity.
Toolbox for Mobility Management, Eltis. This publication presents easily understandable information and practical advice for implementing Mobility Management programs that enhance mobility while reducing the negative impacts of transportation on the environment, the economy, and society.
Don’t Underestimate Your Property: Forecasting Trips and Managing Density Over the Long Term in Fairfax County, Virginia, by Camille A. Galdes and Justin Schor. This study found that developments with comprehensive but cost-effective TDM programs actually generated half the vehicle trips predicted by the latest ITE trip generation values.
Yes, Other Countries Do Housing Better: Political Lessons from Ten Nations About Building Affordable, Low-Carbon Neighborhoods, by Alan Durning. This column summarizes lessons from around the world for creating more affordable and sustainable communities.
Handbook for Analyzing Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions, Assessing Climate Vulnerabilities, and Advancing Health and Equity: Designed for Local Governments, Communities, and Project Developers, California Air Pollution Control Officers Association. The Handbook provides methods to quantify GHG emission reductions from a specified list of measures, primarily focused on project-level actions.
“A Dozen Effective Interventions to Reduce Car Use in European Cities: Lessons Learned From a Meta-Analysis and Transition Management,” Case Studies on Transport Policy, by Paula Kuss and Kimberly A. Nicholas. This study evaluates various urban traffic reduction strategies based on research carried out at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies.
Zero Auto Ownership: Understanding the Zero Car Commute, Institute of Transportation Engineers. This short report summarizes the travel demands of zero auto ownership (ZAO) and their implications for more equitable and sustainable transportation planning.
“Urban Design, Transport, and Health,” The Lancet Global Health. This series of articles explore how to define, measure and guide decisions to create healthy and sustainable cities.
Cycling Across the World: A 28-Country Global Advisor Survey, Ipsos Consulting. This new Ipsos survey finds that most adults across 28 countries favor of giving bicycles priority over automobiles in new infrastructure projects.
Parking Reform Network is a professional and advocacy organization that support parking policy reforms for climate action, housing affordability and safer streets. Its website includes a Mandates Map that identifies North American cities that are reforming parking requirements, plus a new Parking Benefits Districts Guide that describes why and how cities can meter on-street parking and invest the revenues in neighborhood improvements.
“We’ve Got to Stop Requiring Parking Everywhere,” New York Times, by Farhad Manjoo. Describes why and how cities are eliminating parking minimums.
The Parking Paradox of Urban India: Creating a Demand-supply Equilibrium, Ola Mobility Institute. This issue brief highlights the social and environmental costs of free parking in India.
The Root of Local Government Revenues: Rethinking the Intersection between Land Use Planning and Finances to Boost the Revenue Productivity of the Tax Base, Rethinking Revenue. This report examines how land use decisions affect municipal revenues and identifies actions that local governments can take to better manage their land uses for positive revenue impacts, including examples.
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