Suchergebnisse

The observation that increasing dispersion of employment opportunities leads to decreased travel times is reflective of a short-term phenomenon. Census-reported journey-to-work travel time is examined for the greater Philadelphia region, showing that more people are commuting by automobile, a mode usually associated with shorter journey times, but are reporting longer trip times. The finding is counterintuitive as it coincides with a period when new jobs were established in outlying areas and the region experienced a net loss in jobs. The study concludes that as job opportunities disperse into lower density areas, Philadelphia's existing high-capacity systems are underutilized, and transportation systems throughout the region that were designed for relatively low demand are becoming overwhelmed in time. The net effect is a breakdown of both the urban mass transit systems and the suburban and rural highway networks, the latter because of overuse and the former because of underuse.

This article reports and analyzes survey and focus group data regarding baseline goals for public works administration, against which new metrics can be constructed that meaningfully reflect the ideals implied by the notion of sustainability, focusing in particular on four policy areas in the Philadelphia metropolitan region.We administered a survey to key informants, all of whom had also agreed to participate in focus groups.The major conclusion from the survey and focus group data is that land-use policies could most likely serve as a common matrix for sustainability baselines and measurements in water, energy, and transportation.

Researchers and practitioners who are interested in whether low parking costs may play a role in skewing travel toward the private automobile and away from transit have been hampered by the lack of systematic data on parking costs. This exploratory study reports on downtown public parking costs using a 2009 survey of public parking agencies in 107 U.S. cities. On average, on-street meters allowed parking for up to 2 hr and charged $1.00 per hour while off-street "commuter" lots charged $11 per day. Median fees for violating regulations ranged from $25 (meter violations) up to $200 (handicapped parking violations). Exploratory multivariable regression results found higher parking cost was associated with an increase in public transit miles in larger cities (adjusted for economic features of the city). This preliminary, exploratory study provides baseline data with which to compare future parking data that could inform parking policy's influence on mode choice.