Alternative Land Use Patterns to Minimize Congestion, Volume 1

Urban sprawl creates serious traffic congestion. Alternative land use patterns may be the best solution. New Urbanists claim that, by placing frequently-visited sites within walking distance of homes and creating a pleasant walking environment, people are more willing to choose non-motorized transportation mode to do such activities. Part I of this study investigated the ability of travel demand models to estimate the impacts of alternative land use patterns. Part II conducted an...
More Description

Urban sprawl creates serious traffic congestion. Alternative land use patterns may be the best solution. New Urbanists claim that, by placing frequently-visited sites within walking distance of homes and creating a pleasant walking environment, people are more willing to choose non-motorized transportation mode to do such activities. Part I of this study investigated the ability of travel demand models to estimate the impacts of alternative land use patterns. Part II conducted an economic viability analysis for a mixed land use neighborhood and collected land use preferences at meetings of neighborhood associations. The objective in Part III is to evaluate the feasibility of implementing mixed land use neighborhood, based upon public acceptance, actual impacts on travel behavior and observed trip making patterns. Two mailback surveys and three intercept surveys were conducted and analyzed for this report. In this study, the statistical analyses of the two mailback surveys have shown that a resident’s non-motorized mode travel share is strongly related to his/her home-to-store trip distance. However, a resident’s shopping frequency at neighborhood stores is not related to his/her home to-store trip distance. Mixed land use may not lead to fewer vehicle trips, if the trips to “neighborhood stores” that are close to home or work are made by automobile as part of a trip chain. Neighborhood stores in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood attract both residents and nonresident customers. Because an increase in traffic to neighborhood stores could worsen the environment for a neighborhood’s residents, the size, type and location of neighborhood stores in a mixed land use neighborhood need to be managed carefully. Neighborhood stores can be located along the arterial streets that surround the neighborhood, not at the center of the neighborhood. This arrangement may not adhere to the New Urbanist sense of “place”, but it offers the neighborhoods reduced vehicular traffic and the neighborhood businesses increased exposure to non-neighborhood potential customers.