Designing transportation and land use coordination: frameworks for measuring, understanding, and realizing sustainability, livability, and equity

Abstract

ABSTRACT The coordination of transportation and land use (also known as “smart growth”) has been a long-standing goal for planning and engineering professionals, but to this day remains an elusive concept to realise. In response, this paper dialogues literature and practices related to transportation and land use coordination (TLC), as well as sustainability, livability, and equity (SLE), finding that a comprehensive approach is to focus on the equitable access people have to opportunities to improve their quality of life (namely jobs and housing) which, in turn, can provide a pathway to lower amounts of vehicle travel. The primary goals of this paper are to highlight institutional gaps between transport and land-use planning, evaluate existing frameworks, develop new frameworks, and discuss the development of a new tool. Specifically, this paper reviews various performance measure and place typology frameworks used by transportation agencies, with an aim to synthesise insights from various sources for application in professional practice and to frame the idea of a new tool, the Smart Mobility Calculator, to help agencies (MPOs, DOTs, and local land use authorities) coordinate and achieve a balance between transportation and land use. This paper concludes that effective planning and evaluation frameworks must: (1) help understand current conditions and future scenarios; (2) help create context-sensitive and inclusive processes; and (3) screen, prioritise, and mediate strategies in support of TLC in order to achieve sustainability, livability, and equity goals.