1. Topic 6 – Urban Transportation
Transportation and Urban Form
Urban Land Use and Transportation
Urban Mobility
Urban Transport Problems

2. A – Transportation and Urban Form
1. Elements of the Urban Form
2. Evolution of Transportation and Urban Form
3. The Spatial Imprint of Urban Transportation
4. Transportation and the Urban Structure

3. 1. Elements of the Urban Form
Urbanization
Dominant trend of economic and social change.
Especially in the developing world.
Growing size of cities.
Increasing proportion of the urbanized population:
More than doubled since 1950.
Nearly 3 billion in 2000, about 47% of the global population.
50 million urbanites each year, roughly a million a week.
By 2050, 6.2 billion people, about two thirds of humanity, will be urban residents.
Due to demographic growth and rural to urban migration.
Urban mobility issues
Increased proportionally with urbanization.

4. 1. Elements of the Urban Form
Urban transportation
Requirements of collective, individual and freight transportation.
Composed of modes, infrastructures and users.
Urban transport modes:
May complementary to one another or competing.
Transit is a urban form of transportation (high ridership and short distances).
Urban transport infrastructures:
Physical form used by modes.
Consume space and structure the city.
Urban transport users:
Wide variety of socioeconomic conditions.
Variety of spatial conditions.
Urban transport as a choice or a constraint.

5. Transportation and Urban Form
Infrastructures
Modes
Users
Transportation
imprint
Spatial
Urban Form

6. 1. Elements of the Urban Form
Collective Transportation (public transit)
Provide publicly accessible mobility over specific parts of a city.
Benefiting from economies of scale.
Tramways, buses, trains, subways and ferryboats.
Individual Transportation
Includes the car, walking, cycling and the motorcycle.
People walk to satisfy their basic mobility.
Freight Transportation
Cities are dominant production and consumption centers.
Activities are accompanied by large movements of freight.
Delivery trucks converging to industries, warehouses and retail activities.
Major terminals.

7. 1. Elements of the Urban Form
Density issues
Modern cities:
Inherited an urban form created in the past.
Can be monocentric or polycentric (more common).
Movements are organized or disorganized.
European, Japanese and Chinese:
Tend to be monocentric.
Movements tend to be organized.
30 to 60% of all trips by walking and cycling.
Australian and American cities:
Built recently and encourages automobile dependency.
Tend to be polycentric.
Movements tend to be disorganized.

8. Possible Urban Movement Patterns
Organized
Source: adapted from A. Bertaud (2001) Metropolis: A Measure of the Spatial Organization of 7 Large Cities.
Disorganized
Monocentric
Polycentric

9. 2. Evolution of Transportation and Urban Form
Led to a change in most urban forms.
New central areas expressing new urban activities (suburbs).
Central business district (CBD):
Once the primary destination of commuters and serviced by public transportation.
Challenged by changing manufacturing, retailing and management practices.
Emergence of sub-centers in the periphery.
Manufacturing:
Traditional manufacturing depended on centralized workplaces and transportation.
Technology has rendered modern industry more flexible.

10. One Hour Commuting According to Different Urban Transportation Modes
Streetcar line
Freeway
Walking
Source: adapted from Hugill, (1993), p. 213.
10 km
Streetcar
Cycling
Automobile
Automobile with
freeways

11. Evolution of the Spatial Structure of a CityB C
Core activities
Peripheral activities
Major transport axis
Central activities
Central area

12. 2. Evolution of Transportation and Urban Form
Contemporary changes
Dispersed urban land development patterns:
Abundant land, low transportation costs, tertiary industries.
Strong relationship between urban density and car use.
Faster growth rate of built areas than population growth.
Decentralization of activities:
Commuter journeys have remained relatively similar in duration.
Commuting tends to be longer and made by privately owned cars rather than by public transportation.
Most transit and road systems were developed to facilitate suburb-to-city, rather than suburb-to-suburb, commuting.
Suburban highways are often as congested as urban highways.

13. 2. Evolution of Transportation and Urban Form
Constance in commuting time
Most people travel less than 30 minutes in order to get to work.
People are spending about 1.2 hours per day commuting.
Different transport technologies are associated with different travel speeds and capacity.
Cities that rely primarily on non-motorized transport tend to be different than auto-dependent cities.
The United States has the lowest average commuting time in the world, around 25 minutes in 1990.

14. Average Journey to Work Travel Time, 1990
Source: Wendell Cox Consultancy (2001),

15. 3. The Spatial Imprint of Urban Transportation
Land for transportation
Pre-automobile era:
About 10% of the land of a city was devoted to transportation.
A growing share of urban areas is allocated to circulation.
Variations of the spatial imprint of urban transportation:
Between different cities.
Between different parts of a city (central and peripheral areas).
Private car:
Requires space to move around (roads).
Spends 98% of its existence stationary in a parking space.
Consumes a significant amount of urban space.
10% of the arable land of the United States allocated for the car.

16. 3. The Spatial Imprint of Urban Transportation
Components of the spatial imprint of urban transportation
Pedestrian areas:
Amount of space devoted to walking.
Space is often shared with roads as sidewalks may use between 10% and 20% of a road's right of way.
In central areas, pedestrian areas tend to use a greater share of the right of way (whole areas may be reserved only for pedestrians).
Most of pedestrian areas are servicing access to parked automobiles.
Roads and parking areas:
Amount of space devoted to road transportation, which has two states of activity; moving or parked
On average 30% of the urban surface is devoted to roads.
Another 20% is required for off-street parking
For each car there is about 2 off-street and 2 on-street parking spaces.
Roads and parking lots: between 30 to 60% of the total urban surface.

17. Land Area Consumed by the Car in Selected Countries, 1999
Source: Kauffman, R.J. (2001) Paving The Planet: Cars and Crops Competing For Land, Alert, Worldwatch Institute (

18. Urban Spatial Structure, Hempstead, Long Island, New York
Road (11.9%)
Parking (21.8%)
Building (5.3%)
Other (61.0%)
Source: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Hofstra University Campus GIS, 2002.

19. 3. The Spatial Imprint of Urban Transportation
Cycling areas:
In a disorganized form, cycling simply share access to road space.
Many attempts to create a space specific to the circulation of bicycles in urban areas, namely with reserved lanes and parking facilities.
Transit systems:
Many transit systems, such as buses and tramways, are sharing road areas, which often impairs their efficiency.
Subways and rail have their own infrastructures and their own areas.
Creation of road lanes reserved to buses.
Transport terminals:
Amount of space devoted to terminal facilities such as ports, airports, railyards and distribution centers.
Globalization has increased the amount of people and freight circulation and the amount of urban space required to support those activities.
Many major terminals are located in the peripheral areas of cities, which are the only locations where sufficient amounts of land is available.

20. Pedestrian, Cycling and Road Spaces, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Source: Photo by Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, May 2002

21. I II
Road
Highway
Activity center
Transit line
III IV

22. 4. Transportation and the Urban Structure
Type I - Completely Motorized Network
Car-dependent city with a limited centrality:
Massive network of high capacity highways.
Large parking lots.
Low to average land use densities.
Public transit is having a residual function.
Relationship between commercial / industrial / residential space and parking space.
Secondary road converges at highways, along which small centers are located, notably nearby interchanges.
Examples:
Cities where urban growth occurred in the second half of the twentieth century:
Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver and Dallas.

23. 4. Transportation and the Urban Structure
Type II - Weak Center
Average land use densities and a concentric pattern.
CBD offers slightly more jobs than it is possible to move by car.
Under-used public transit system:
Unprofitable in most instances and thus requires subsidies.
Impossible to serve all the territory with the transit system.
Ring roads:
Emergence a set of small centers in the periphery.
Convergence of radial lines, some of them effectively competing with the downtown area for the location of economic activities.
Examples:
Older cities that emerged if the first half of the twentieth century:
Melbourne, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Montreal.

24. The Rationale of a Ring Road
Spatial Structure
Accessibility 5
Avoiding the congested
central area 10 5 10 5 A 10 B 10 5
City
Center
A to B = 30
Secondary
Center 5 10 10 10 5 10 5 A B
Structuring
Suburban
development 10 10 10 10 5
A to B = 20

25. 4. Transportation and the Urban Structure
Type III - Strong Center
High land use density:
High levels of accessibility to urban transit.
Limited needs for highways and parking space in the central area.
High capacity and efficient public transit servicing most of the mobility needs.
Convergence of radial roads and ring roads:
Location of secondary centers, where activities that could no longer able to afford a central location have located.
Examples:
Cities having important commercial and financial function.
Growth in the late 18th century.
Paris, New York, Shanghai, Toronto, Sydney and Hamburg.

26. 4. Transportation and the Urban Structure
Type IV - Traffic Limitation
Average-sized cities having a high land use density that were planned to limit the usage of the car in central zones.
Limited driving and parking spaces are available.
“Funnel effect“:
Public transit is used in the central area.
Individual transportation takes a greater importance in the periphery.
Keeps cars from the central areas while giving mobility in the suburbs.
Examples:
Cities having a long planning history aiming to provide mobility by public transit.
Historical downtown area protected from heavy circulation.
London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vienna and Stockholm.

27. B – Urban Land Use and Transportation
1. The Land Use - Transport System
2. Urban Land Use Models

28. 1. The Land Use - Transport System
Urban land use
Nature and level of spatial accumulation of activities.
Human activities imply a multitude of functions:
Production, consumption and distribution.
Activity system:
Locations and spatial accumulation form land uses.
The behavioral patterns of individuals, institutions and firms will have an imprint on land use.
Land use relationships
Land use implies a set of relationships with other land uses.
Commercial land use:
Relationships with its supplier and customers.
Relationships with suppliers: related with movements of freight.
Relationships with customers: movements of passengers.

29. The Transport / Land Use System
Infrastructures (supply)
Friction of Space
Spatial Accumulation (demand)
Transport System
Spatial Interactions
Land Use
Accessibility
Traffic assignment models
Transport capacity
Spatial interaction models
Distance decay parameters
Modal split
Economic base theory
Location theory
Traffic generation and attraction models

30. Sector and nuclei paradigm Hybrid paradigm Land rent paradigm
2. Urban Land Use Models
Concentric paradigm
Land use of function of distance from a nucleus.
Sector and nuclei paradigm
Influences of transport axis and several nuclei on land use.
Hybrid paradigm
Try to integrate the strengths of each representation.
Land rent paradigm
Land use as a market where different urban activities are competing for land usage at a location.

31. Burgess’ Urban Land Use Model
Chicago, 1920s
Single Family Dwellings
Second Immigrant
Settlement
Little
Sicily
Ghetto
LOOP
Two Plan
Area
Apartment Houses
Black Belt
Residential District
Bungalow
Section
I - Loop (downtown)
IV - Working class zone
II - Factory zone
V - Residential zone
III - Zone of transition
VI - Commuter zone

32. Sector and Nuclei Urban Land Use Models2 3 3 4 1 2 3 3 5 4 3 1 3 3 5 7 3 6 4 2 3 9 8
1 CBD
2 Wholesale and light manufacturing
3 Low-class residential
4 Middle-class residential
5 High-class residential
6 Heavy manufacturing
7 Sub business district
8 Residential suburb
9 Industrial suburb

33. Hybrid Land Use Model Center Residential Industrial / Manufacturing
Commercial
Residential
Transport axis

34. Land Rent and Land Use 1 – Bid rent curves 2 – Overlay of bid rent
B- Industry/
commercial
A- Retailing
Distance
City limits
C - Apartments
D - Single houses