Transportation Investment Policy and Urban Land Use Patterns

David J. Forkenbrock
Sondip K. Mathur
Lisa A. Schweitzer
2001

Since the end of World War II, most metropolitan areas within the United States have invested heavily and steadily in their urban highways. Many contend that while these highways have increased mobility for most travelers, they also have contributed to land use patterns that create a series of problems. By extending the distance one can travel in a specified amount of time, these highways have contributed to rapid outward movement of low-density residential areas. Over time, as people make more and longer trips, many urban highways have been highly congested, and long commuting times and degraded air quality have ensued.

Questions are now being asked about how to change urban development trends to lead to cities that have better circulation and more efficient land use patterns. When new transportation projects are contemplated, it is becoming more common for planners to consider how emerging land use patterns would be affected if these projects were to go forward. Would highway projects actually improve the quality of life of the areaÕs residents?

The research question we have sought to address in this monograph is, "Are there useful insights in traditional land economics that can guide us in developing a framework for assessing the probable effects on land use patterns within growing urban areas of specific types of transportation investments?" The short answer to this question, we concluded, is "yes." Accordingly, we have devised a reasonably simple framework for predicting the influence that a specific type of transportation investment would have on land use patterns, under varying local conditions. Turning the question around, we have tried to make the framework capable of helping to answer a different but related question: "If a community knows the general type of overall land use pattern (referred to as "urban form") it would like, is it possible to identify the sorts of transportation investments that would encourage it?" Our conclusion is that this, too, is possible.

In this monograph we review the economic forces that contribute to the way citiesÕ land use patterns evolve. We then focus on transportation investments as one of the key forces affecting these patterns. The framework we then present enables planners to match specific types of transportation investments with the sorts of land uses that would benefit most from them. In this way it become possible to predict the types of land uses that might reasonably be expected to evolve at various locations within the city. We stress the importance of having a consensus within the city as to the general type of urban form that is preferred, so that the objectives a particular investment should pursue are not in question. Finally, we offer several practical recommendations for using transportation investments as a positive force that helps achieve this desired urban form.

$14.95, 92 pp., 15 figures, 6 tables, perfect binding
ISBN 0-87414-136-2