What is Transportation Planning?
To answer this question, I drew on the following discussion from
Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute
www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm50.htm#_Toc28050889
It provides a comprehensive context for understanding transportation planning issues
What is Transportation Planning?
Planning is the process of deciding what to do and how to do it.
Effective planning allows people’s needs, preferences and values to be reflected
in decisions.
Planning occurs at many different levels, from day-to-day decisions made by
individuals and families, to major decisions made by governments and
businesses that have comprehensive, long-term impacts on society.
A basic principle of good planning is that individual, short-term decisions
are coordinated in order to support strategic, long-term objectives.
Comprehensive planning should allow transportation, land use, economic
development and social planning decisions to be coordinated.
The overall goal of transportation planning should be to create a better,
more prosperous and more sustainable place.
Six Elements of Effective Transportation Planning
The following six principles are key to ensuring that transportation plans supports
the social, environmental and economic goals of the society
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Understand the difference between goals and objectives
Plan for development not growth
Keep in mind the broader impacts of transportation plans
Plan based on desired outcomes, not on projection of past trends
Consider all relevant issues, not just those that are easy to measure
Focusing on access and not mobility
1. Goals versus Objectives
Goals are desired outcomes to be achieved, such as health, equity and
happiness.
Objectives are ways to achieve goals.
During a planning process it is helpful to ask regularly, “What are we trying
to achieve?”
The ‘what’ is the goal – we develop objectives to achieve this goal.
It is important not to confuse goals and objectives because
Goals are fundamental – we can’t just substitute one goal for another.
One the other hand, different objectives can be employed to achieve a given
goal. It is important to keep our options open and select the objective that is
best for the situation.
2. Plan for Development, not for Growth
Planners must make a distinction between growth (increased quantity) and
development (increased quality).
In other words, growth means getting bigger, while development means
getting better.
Transportation plans should contribute to the development of a place not
simply to its growth.
Zurich – The Little Big City
In Zurich in the 1970s, transportation planning was done with the explicit intent
that they wanted to develop but not necessarily to grow. Other places might be
willing to accommodate both development and growth. But the important
point is that development should be accorded the higher priority – not growth.
3. Don’t Overlook the Wider Impacts of Transportation Plans
Transportation plans always have wide ranging impacts, affecting not just
travel but also economic, social and environmental aspects of our lives.
These impacts may be short term or much longer term, and
they may extend across geographic and political boundaries.
If we don’t consider these wider impacts, our plans will lead to unintended
or undesirable consequences.
Understanding the Wider Impacts of Transportation Planning
Litman define three levels of impact from transportation planning
First level – Direct impacts or changes in travel conditions and costs.
Second level – Current indirect impacts or changes in travel behavior,
tax revenue, and external impacts.
Third level – Long-term indirect impacts or changes in land use,
economic development.
Example of the Different Levels of Impact of a Transportation Plan
Increasing roadway capacity can have the first-level impacts of initially reducing traffic congestion
and increasing vehicle traffic speeds.
A second-level impact is that the increased traffic capacity may attract additional travel from other
routes and times (Rebound Effects), and it may create barriers to walking and cycling.
A third-level impact may be that over the long run, land use patterns become more dispersed and
automobile dependent (Land Use Impacts).
These second and third order impacts can result in what is know as called 'induced traffic' - traffic
over and above what one would expect from just extrapolating from the past rate of growth.
Traffic Volume
Actual Traffic
Induced Traffic
Predicted Traffic
Date of Widening
Years
The Different Geographic Scales of Planning
Planning also occurs at many different geographic scales. Some geographic scales reflect
natural areas and boundaries and others just reflect political jurisdictions (see table below).
In your project you need to be careful in understanding at which level of geography you are
working. This can be very confusing - sometimes plans apply to overlapping levels of
geography.
Also, the impact of transportation planning often extends beyond the boundary of the
jurisdiction for which the plan was developed.
4. Plan based on desired outcomes, not on projection of past trends
Contemporary transportation planning is often based on using past trends
to predict future vehicle traffic. This predicted traffic volume is then used
to determine the size of new transportation facilities. One problem with
this approach is that it assumes that the factors that led traffic volume to
increase in the past will continue into the future.
Supposedly in banking they know that this is not a reasonable approach
since they warn you ‘Past performance is no guarantee of future results.’
We also have to consider the long term impact of widening roads, for
example – as we discussed earlier - because they change the conditions,
they can lead to induced traffic, which in turn makes the prediction useless.
The approach of basing planning on past trends is derisively referred to as
‘predict and provide’ planning by some.
Kingston is an example
of a place which has
experienced induced traffic
Road Widening Resulting from "Predict and Provide" Planning in Kingston, Jamaica
(source: Garrick, Half-way-Tree Rd, Kingston 2004)
5. Consider all relevant issues, not just those that are easy to measure
Vehicle traffic is relatively easy to measure, so transportation system quality
tends to be evaluated based largely on automobile travel conditions (e.g.,
average traffic speeds, roadway Level-of-Service, vehicle congestion delay,
vehicle operating costs, parking supply).
Many other transportation impacts, including impacts on transit service
quality, non-motorized transport and land use accessibility, are often harder
to measure and tend to be ignored.
This approach tends to favor automobile-oriented solutions, and
undervalues alternative solutions to transportation problems
6. Focus on Access not Mobility
In order to understand this issue we need distinguish between traffic, mobility and
access as follows:
Vehicle Traffic
Conventional transportation often reflects the assumption that transportation means motor
vehicle traffic.
In this approach all vehicles are treated the same
Personal Mobility
A more comprehensive approach reflects the assumption that transportation means personal
mobility, measured in terms of person-trips and person-kilometers.
In this approach transit is given priority over cars, walk is considered
Access
The most comprehensive definition of transportation is Accessibility, the ability to reach
desired goods, services and activities. This is the ultimate goal of transportation, and so is the
best definition to use in transportation planning.
In this approach we consider land use as well as travel options
Understanding the Difference between Accessibility and Mobility
I will illustrate other aspect of access versus mobility using slides
Provided Courtesy of
Ian Lockwood and Paul Moore
Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Inc.
Do these two places provide the same level of Access? Mobility?
Detroit 1949 Street Network
Which is emphasized here? Access or Mobility
Detroit Existing Street Network
Which is emphasized here? Access or Mobility
Viewpoint in next slide