Elements of Access (PDF)

Nothing in cities makes sense except in the light of accessibility. 

A great read by @trnsprtst, out now! -- Taina Haapamäki

Transport cannot be understood without reference to the location of activities (land use), and vice versa. To understand one requires understanding the other. However, for a variety of historical reasons, transport and land use are quite divorced in practice. Typical transport engineers only touch land use planning courses once at most, and only then if they attend graduate school. Land use planners understand transport the way everyone does, from the perspective of the traveler, not of the system, and are seldom exposed to transport aside from, at best, a lone course in graduate school. This text aims to bridge the chasm, helping engineers understand the elements of access that are associated not only with traffic, but also with human behavior and activity location, and helping planners understand the technology underlying transport engineering, the processes, equations, and logic that make up the transport half of the accessibility measure. It aims to help both communicate accessibility to the public.

AUTHOR WEBSITE

http://transportist.org

Table of Contents

I Introduction

1 Elemental Accessibility

• 1.1  Isochrone
  
• 1.2  Rings of Opportunity
  
• 1.3  Metropolitan Average Accessibility
  

II The People

2 Modeling People

• 2.1  Stages, Trips, Journeys, and Tours
  
• 2.2  The Daily Schedule
  
• 2.3  Coordination
  
• 2.4  Diurnal Curve
  
• 2.5  Travel Time
  
• 2.6  Travel Time Distribution
  
• 2.7  Social Interactions
  
• 2.8  Activity Space
  
• 2.9  Space-time Prism
  
• 2.10  Choice
  
• 2.11  Principle of Least Effort
  
• 2.12  Capability
  
• 2.13  Observation Paradox
  
• 2.14  Capacity is Relative
  
• 2.15  Time Perception
  
• 2.16  Time, Space, & Happiness
  
• 2.17  Risk Compensation
  

III The Places

3 The Transect

• 3.1  Residential Density
  
• 3.2  Urban Population Densities
  
• 3.3  Pedestrian City
  
• 3.4  Neighborhood Unit
  
• 3.5  Bicycle City
  
• 3.6  Bicycle Networks
  
• 3.7  Transit City
  
• 3.8  Walkshed
  
• 3.9  Automobile City
  

4 Markets and Networks

• 4.1  Serendipity and Interaction
  
• 4.2  The Value of Interaction
  
• 4.3  Firm-Firm Interactions
  
• 4.4  Labor Markets and Labor Networks
  
• 4.5  Wasteful Commute
  
• 4.6  Job/Worker Balance
  
• 4.7  Spatial Mismatch
  

IV The Plexus

5 Queueing

• 5.1  Deterministic Queues
  
• 5.2  Stochastic Queues
  
• 5.3  Platooning
  
• 5.4  Incidents
  
• 5.5  Just-in-time
  

6 Traffic

• 6.1  Flow
  
• 6.2  Flow Maps
  
• 6.3  Flux
  
• 6.4  Traffic Density
  
• 6.5  Level of Service
  
• 6.6  Speed
  
• 6.7  Shockwaves
  
• 6.8  Ramp Metering
  
• 6.9  Highway Capacity
  
• 6.10  High-Occupancy
  
• 6.11  Snow Business
  
• 6.12  Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram
  
• 6.13  Metropolitan Fundamental Diagram
  

7 Streets and Highways

• 7.1  Highways
  
• 7.2  Boulevards
  
• 7.3  Street Furniture
  
• 7.4  Signs, Signals, and Markings
  
• 7.5  Junctions
  
• 7.6  Conflicts
  
• 7.7  Conflict Points
  
• 7.8  Roundabouts
  
• 7.9  Complete Streets
  
• 7.10  Dedicated Spaces
  
• 7.11  Shared Space
  
• 7.12  Spontaneous Priority
  
• 7.13  Directionality
  
• 7.14  Lanes
  
• 7.15  Vertical Separations
  
• 7.16  Parking Capacity

8 Modalities

• 8.1  Mode Shares
  
• 8.2  First and Last Mile
  
• 8.3  Park-and-Ride
  
• 8.4  Line-haul
  
• 8.5  Timetables
  
• 8.6  Bus Bunching
  
• 8.7  Fares
  
• 8.8  Transit Capacity
  
• 8.9  Modal Magnitudes
  

9 Routing

• 9.1  Conservation
  
• 9.2  Equilibrium
  
• 9.3  Reliability
  
• 9.4  Price of Anarchy
  
• 9.5  The Braess Paradox
  
• 9.6  Rationing
  
• 9.7  Pricing
  

10 Network Topology

• 10.1  Graph
  
• 10.2  Hierarchy
  
• 10.3  Degree
  
• 10.4  Betweenness
  
• 10.5  Clustering
  
• 10.6  Meshedness
  
• 10.7  Treeness
  
• 10.8  Resilience
  
• 10.9  Circuity
  

11 Geometries

• 11.1  Grid
  
• 11.2  BlockSizes
  
• 11.3  Hex
  
• 11.4  Ring-Radial
  

V The Production

12 Supply and Demand

• 12.1  Induced Demand
  
• 12.2  Induced Supply & Value Capture
  
• 12.3  Cost Perception
  
• 12.4  Externalities
  
• 12.5  Lifecycle Costing
  
• 12.6  Affordability
  

13 Synergies

• 13.1  Economies of Scale
  
• 13.2  Containerization
  
• 13.3  Economies of Scope
  
• 13.4  Network Economies
  
• 13.5  Intertechnology Effects
  
• 13.6  Economies of Agglomeration
  
• 13.7  Economies of Amenity
  

VI The Progress

14 Lifecycle Dynamics

• 14.1  Technology Substitutes for Proximity
  
• 14.2  Conurbation
  
• 14.3  Megaregions
  
• 14.4  Path Dependence
  
• 14.5  Urban Scaffolding
  
• 14.6  Modularity
  
• 14.7  Network Origami
  
• 14.8  Volatility Begets Stability
  

15 Our Autonomous Future

Bibliography