Tag: Urban planning
How policy leads to sprawl
Development policy leads to urban sprawl, and the resulting costs are enormous. A new report, Analysis of Public Policies That Unintentionally Encourage and Subsidize Urban Sprawl, authored by Todd Litman of the Victorian Transport Policy Institute, investigates. Sprawl results in drops in ecological and agricultural productivity, higher public infrastructure and service costs, and greater transportation […]
Why traffic estimates are ultra-important
Urban planners, engineers and policymakers use traffic projections to settle everything from how many parking spaces a property needs to whether to widen roads, lengthen signal cycles or reduce housing or retail plans. What would happen if these estimates were faulty? Funds would be diverted from projects that really need them. Housing costs could rise. And new developments would […]
Seattle adopts demand-based parking prices
Seattle may soon join the ranks of San Francisco and Los Angeles: cities that have dynamic or time-of-day pricing for its parking network. The idea stems from Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. According to his research on the economics of parking, drivers won’t park at spaces […]
