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TRG Report No. 11

Urban Design, Transportation, Environment and Urban
Growth: Transit-Supportive Urban Design Impacts on
Suburban Land Use and Transportation Planning

Authors: Carol J. Swenson and Frederick C. Dock
Research Project: Transportation, Urban Design, and the Environment
Published: 2003

Abstract

This report summarizes the development and utilization of enhancements to the regional transportation model to measure the individual and accumulative impacts of transit-supportive urban design strategies. The report has three main sections: 1) urban design analysis of four transit-supportive development proposals; 2) development of model enhancements in the form of a subarea model; and 3) use of the subarea model to analyze a subregional transit-supportive growth scenario.

The urban design analysis demonstrated that transit-supportive development principles are adaptable to
suburban settings and that use of the principles does improve land use mixes and walkability. It also confirmed that guidelines for transit-supportive development can be used to create a network of suburban sites that meets city and regional goals.

The subarea transportation model proved sufficiently sensitive to detect changes in tripmaking patterns at the site and subregional scales. Two types of tripmaking contributed to these changes: short-distance trips between transit-supportive developments and walk or bicycle trips within developments.

Results from the subregional analyses most clearly demonstrated the benefits of transit-supportive
development strategies. At the subregional scale, the model tracked travel interactions between transit supportive development sites, which revealed the accumulative benefits. If the entire region were modeled
accordingly, it is expected that benefit indicators would show even greater improvements.

Note: Due to the large number of maps and charts in this report, the document has been split into sections to reduce download times.

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