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Correlating Travel and Land Use Patterns
Researcher's findings document effects of urban sprawl.
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People love their cars, or at least what their cars do for them. When
you have wheels, the sky's the limit. You can go anywhere — to the
corner grocery or across town — and go fast. You can live in suburbia
and commute 35 miles to work in the city.
photo
by Meg Buscema, MARTA
MARTA operates a system
of trains and buses in metro Atlanta to provide public transportation,
which can help alleviate traffic congestion.
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Since the 1950s, that's exactly what many Americans have done. So, for
decades, this free-wheeling use of the automobile has dominated land use
planning in the United States, says Dr. Larry Frank, an assistant
professor of city planning
in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture.
People drive, rather than walk, because they are widely spread out in
suburbs, and sidewalks don't exist in many areas, Frank says. Today, the
average American driver travels the road about 30 miles a day, a
statistic that has dramatically increased since 1950. The result is an
increase in vehicle emissions that pollute the air.
Frank's research correlates vehicle miles traveled, emissions and land
use patterns of households.
For the Centers for Disease Control, Frank
is also studying the relationships between travel behavior, community
design — the lack of sidewalks and bicycling paths, for example — and
the public's level of physical activity.
In a two-part research project funded by the Atlanta-based
Turner
Foundation, Frank is building a metro Atlanta database that is allowing
him to correlate household automobile trips, moderate- and low-density
land use patterns, and the amount of vehicle emissions generated. His first task is answering how this data correlates,
and the second part of the study will determine where the greatest
correlation occurs.
In January 1997, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT)
provided start-up funding for the multi-disciplinary
Georgia
Transportation Institute (GTI). The center conducts research,
development, education and technology transfer related to all types of
transportation in Georgia.
Georgia Tech coordinates the involvement of transportation researchers
from seven Georgia universities. This multi-institutional involvement
makes GTI unique.
"Individually, Georgia Tech and the other schools within GTI have always
had very strong transportation research programs," says Dr. Glenn Rix,
director of GTI and an associate professor of civil engineering at
Georgia Tech. "GTI will provide a focal point for those efforts and help
make the whole greater than the sum of the parts."
GTI was the suggestion of GDOT Commissioner Wayne Shackelford, who
believed the state needed to consolidate its transportation research
efforts.
"We felt that the Institute would be a good way to expand transportation
research in Georgia by having one organization that could oversee
research for the entire state," says Lamar Caylor, an assistant
materials and research engineer for GDOT. "Other states, like Texas and
Virginia, have had similar organizations for a long time. The GTI makes
Georgia more competitive in the area of transportation research."
Although GTI's initial two-year period of funding has come from GDOT,
research under its umbrella is not limited to projects for the state.
Other sources include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Centers
for Disease Control, Federal Highway Administration and the Turner
Foundation.
GTI is one of the largest transportation research programs in the United
States in terms of funding. "GTI researchers are among the best in the
world in diverse areas ranging from intelligent transportation systems
to transportation policy and planning, and from new materials to vehicle
emissions modeling," Rix says. For more
information, contact Dr. Glenn Rix, Georgia Transportation
Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0735. (Telephone:
404/385-0381) (E-mail:
glenn.rix@gatrans.org)
To date, he has determined that Atlanta area households
in moderately dense areas, with moderate levels of street connectivity,
drive and pollute less daily than those in low-density areas. This
finding supports proposals for in-fill development — such as
revitalization of old shopping areas — and highlights the need for a
more detailed, integrated database, Frank says.
"There's an argument for containment here," Frank says of his findings.
"The question is, 'How far can we sprawl out and meet the air quality
standards we need?'"
Frank conducted a similar study in Seattle, Wash. There, the problems
are not as acute as Atlanta's because of controls on development, he
says. Also, the city's air pollution problems are eased by favorable
winds off the Pacific Ocean. Atlanta does not have that advantage.
Because of his findings in the Atlanta and Seattle studies, Frank has
received support from a group of agencies to conduct a comprehensive
research project. He is now leading the design of the Atlanta region's
next travel survey, which will be used to make future land use and
transportation plans. The project involves creation of a very detailed
regional travel database, which will be compiled from household travel
surveys and data from in-vehicle instrumentation, among other sources.
The study, called Strategies for Metro Atlanta Regional Transportation
and Air Quality (SMARTRAQ), began last October and will continue for
three more years. The $1.6 million undertaking is being funded by the
Georgia Department of Transportation, Atlanta Regional Commission,
Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Centers for Disease Control and the Turner Foundation.
"We are creating a database from the ground up," Frank says. "It will be
an activity-based travel survey. We want to know the details of
people's choices in utilitarian travel, like trips to the store, and
recreational travel. We will collect information on attitudes and values
— what drives where people choose to live and why people choose to
travel. It will also include information on household structure and
demographics."
An important component of SMARTRAQ will be outreach to and education of
developers, professionals, government officials and the general public
about the benefits of less auto-dependent approaches to land
development, Frank says. "We want to conduct a massive public education
campaign. It will be a long-term process to change people's travel
behavior," he says.
The ultimate goal of SMARTRAQ is to provide officials with technical and
policy evaluation tools that support a regional transportation and land
use planning process, Frank says.
— Jane M. Sanders
Dr. Glenn Rix
For more information, contact Larry Frank, College of Architecture,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0155. (Telephone:
404/894-6488) (E-mail: l
arry.frank@arch.gatech.edu)
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