Not So Fast - Better Speed Valuation for Transportation Planning

It increases the destinations that affected travellers can access in a given time period, and therefore their economic and social opportunities, but inevitably increases many costs to users and communities, and often harms people who cannot use the faster mode, such as when wider roads and increased traffic speeds degrade walking and bicycling conditions, or if automobile-oriented planning stimula. [...] More automobile dependency and sprawl reduce overall accessibility and travel options, and therefore increase the amount of vehicle travel required to access services and activities. [...] Integrated transportation-land use models that consider how transportation system changes, such as wider roads and public transit service improvements, affect accessibility, travel activity and development patterns, and how decisions related to the location and type of development that occurs in a community, will affect future accessibility and travel patterns (Levinson and King 2020). [...] 22 Not So Fast: Better Speed Valuation for Transportation Planning Victoria Transport Policy Institute Criticisms and Reforms The tendency of planning to overvalue speed and undervalue slower modes has been criticized by urbanists such as Jane Jacobs and Louis Mumford, and by transportation experts such as John Adams (1999) and Paul Tranter (2010). [...] Transportation planning tends to undercount demand for travel by slower modes and for shorter trips; planning analysis measures speed and distance but not the convenience and comfort of slower modes; and many external impacts that increase with speed, and the effects of induced travel and sprawl costs, are generally overlooked in conventional planning.