Transportation & Land Use – Page 2

Beyond the Automobile?

Sir Peter Hall

There is growing international consensus that the world needs a successor to the motor car. A deluge of commentary in recent times has alerted us all to the hazards of air pollution, traffic congestion, petroleum consumption, and now global warming. The automobile is said to be the cause of it all. Some argue that decentralization of cities and low suburban densities force people to use cars. Transportation and urban planners everywhere have been looking for remedies, preferably by finding an alternative to the car such as the bus or train.

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2017-05-30T22:03:56+00:00Categories: ACCESS 30, Spring 2007|Tags: Technology & Innovation, Transit, Transportation & Land Use|

Flexible Transit, the American City, and Mel Webber

Robert Cervero

Melvin Webber was one of the original “bus guys” in the transportation planning field. He was one of the few to show respect for that Rodney Dangerfield of public transportation, the one that gets very little respect: the rubber-tire bus. But Mel’s vision of public transit was not stodgy old buses lumbering along city streets. He had in mind a more nimble, versatile form of transit—one that could compete with, and sometimes even mimic, the private car.

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2017-05-30T22:06:31+00:00Categories: ACCESS Special Issue, Winter 2006-2007|Tags: Planning History, Regional & International Development, Transit, Transportation & Land Use, Transportation Policy & Planning|

Melvin M. Webber: Maker and Breaker of Planning Paradigms

Sir Peter Hall

Melvin M. Webber died two days after Thanksgiving in the Berkeley home where he and his wife Carolyn had lived peaceably for nearly half a century; they would soon have celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, but at the age of 86 his multiple myeloma cheated them of their festival. With him passed an era in the history of Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning, where he had spent nearly all his long academic life and to whose international pre-eminence he had so profoundly contributed.

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2017-05-30T22:16:27+00:00Categories: ACCESS Special Issue, Winter 2006-2007|Tags: Planning History, Transit, Transportation & Land Use, Transportation Policy & Planning|

Teaching With Mel

Elizabeth Deakin

Mel Webber taught both planning theory and transportation policy to graduate students in the Department of City and Regional Planning. I had the good fortune to co-teach the transportation policy class with him in the late 1980s, shortly before his retirement from the department. We each took responsibility for some of the sessions, but both of us participated in nearly every class. When it was Mel’s turn, he rarely lectured. Sometimes he started the class with a slide show or a few transparencies, then opened up the session to discussion. At other times he came to class with brief introductory remarks and an example or two, plus a list of questions to debate.

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2017-05-30T22:16:36+00:00Categories: ACCESS Special Issue, Winter 2006-2007|Tags: Planning History, Transportation & Land Use, Transportation Policy & Planning|

Dispatch from London

John Landis

Upon arriving in London (or any other major English city), the first thing an American notices is how few SUVs, pickup trucks, and full-sized minivans are on the roads. This is partly because of gasoline’s high price, currently about $5.80 per US gallon, and partly because English roads and parking spaces are so narrow. However, things do seem to be changing. Sales of SUVs are rising, particularly among suburbanites with children, as are sales of seven-passenger multi-purpose vehicles, which are slightly smaller versions of American minivans.

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2017-05-30T22:17:58+00:00Categories: ACCESS 29, Fall 2006|Tags: Regional & International Development, Transit, Transportation & Land Use, Transportation Finance & Pricing|

People, Parking, And Cities

Michael Manville and Donald Shoup

The pop culture image of Los Angeles is an ocean of malls, cars, and exit ramps; of humorless tract homes and isolated individuals whose only solace is aimless driving on endless freeways. From Joan Didion to the Sierra Club, LA has been held up as a poster child of sprawl. This is an arresting and romantic narrative, but also largely untrue. To the extent that anyone has a definition of sprawl, it usually revolves around the absence of density, and Los Angeles has since the 1980s been the densest urbanized area in the United States. This would make it the least sprawling city in America. Compared to other US cities, LA also does not have inordinately high rates of automobile ownership.

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2017-05-30T22:31:19+00:00Categories: ACCESS 25, Fall 2004|Tags: Parking, Transportation & Land Use|

Middle Age Sprawl: BART and Urban Development

John Landis and Robert Cervero

BART was the first American rail rapid transit system to be built in modern times, and its arrival was greeted with worldwide attention. BART is famous. Its fame is attached to its favorable image as the answer to the problems of the modern American metropolis. And the extent to which it has succeeded, or failed, to live up to expectations is an important lesson for other cities wanting to emulate it.

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2017-05-31T21:36:01+00:00Categories: ACCESS 14, Spring 1999|Tags: Design‚ Development‚ and Housing, Transit, Transportation & Land Use|

The Transportation-Land Use Connection Still Matters

Robert Cervero

and John Landis

In the Spring 1995 issue of ACCESS, Genevieve Giuliano contends there is a weakening connection between' urban land uses and transportation. She therefore finds little justification for public initiatives such as programs to balance jobs and housing and investments in rail transit. She argues that because urban areas in the United States are already so accessible, settlement patterns so well-established, and maintenance of privacy so important, transportation plays an ever-decreasing role in the locational decisions of households and businesses. Her essay infers that the land use-transportation connection is now too weak to matter in terms of public policy.

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2022-10-03T20:10:12+00:00Categories: ACCESS 07, Fall 1995|Tags: Jobs‚ Economy‚ and Transportation, Transportation & Land Use|

The Weakening Transportation-Land Use Connection

Genevieve Giuliano

The precise relationship between transportation and land use continues to elude us. It seems self-evident that transportation facilities and services have enormous effects on land use patterns. We’ve all observed developments occur around freeway interchanges, and we all know the history of automobile-oriented suburban development. However, when we look beyond broad generalizations, we see far more complex and uncertain relationships, as well as a cluster of unsubstantiated beliefs.

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2022-09-29T20:50:35+00:00Categories: ACCESS 06, Spring 1995|Tags: Jobs‚ Economy‚ and Transportation, Transportation & Land Use|

Highway Blues: Nothing a Little Accessibility Can’t Cure

Susan Handy

I recently moved from Berkeley to Austin, the “Berkeley of Texas.” Although there are similarities, and Austin is certainly as close to Berkeley as Texas gets, there are plenty of things I miss about Berkeley. I miss the hills and the bay. I miss good Chinese food and Thai food, Super Burritos, and cheap, expertly made caffe lattes. Most of all, I miss having my favorite restaurants, a copy shop, a bike shop, a pet store, a bookstore, and a supermarket, all within a short and pleasant walk from home.

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2022-09-28T23:11:03+00:00Categories: ACCESS 05, Fall 1994|Tags: Transportation & Land Use|