REVERSING THE TREND TOWARD AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCY --

A RATIONALE FOR HALTING FREEWAY EXPANSION

An Excerpted Bibliography of J.R. Kenworthy, P.W.G Newman,

and T.J. Lyons

Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.

July 19, 1989

Kenworthy, Jeffrey R., "An Urban Vision for an Urban Future: The Perth Central Area compared to thirty international cities". Transport Research Paper 9/87, Environmental Science, Murdoch University.

The Perth central area is compared to the central areas of thirty cities in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia on the basis of some key CBD [Central Business District] characteristics. It is found to have the second highest level of parking provision per CBD worker (562 spaces/1000 jobs) and the second lowest overall employment density (91593 jobs at 121/ha). ... Perth is also very low by world standards in central area, population and density (... 8.4 person/ha) and had in 1981 only 7% as many people living in the area as working there. This is in contrast to "living cities" such as Amsterdam which had ... 71% as many residents as jobs. ...

[Perth's slogan is] "Your car is as welcome as you are." ... Looking from the air at the hostile central cities of places like Detroit and Houston (for that matter most of the US cities in the study), we see the important role that parking can have in shaping a city's identity. ... A better balance of population and jobs in the city centre is ... associated with improved public transport performance. ... Increased parking supply is very strongly negative in its effect on public transport performance, being significantly associated with reduced provision and use and higher energy input per passenger km of travel. ... Greater population density in the CBD is associated with a more public transport, walking and bicycling oriented city. ... Cities that have a heavy commitment to car parks in their central areas tend to have higher car ownership and use, much poorer public transport use, ... and less use of non-motorized modes.

[J.M.] Thomson (1977) shows in his book Great Cities and Their Traffic that once a city grows beyond 100,000 to 120,000 jobs in the central area it cannot have cars as the principal mode of access without destroying the centre with roads and car parks. ... Traffic congestion - life in Houston and Los Angeles ... is dominated by "the traffic", with freeways coming to a viirtual standstill in the peak hours and sometimes other parts of the day. ... Automotive emissions - cities like Houston, Los Angeles and Denver have serious motor vehicle pollution problems due to their extreme car orientation. ... Lack of people-friendly public environments - the public face of these US cities is shaped primarily by the automobile with few pedestrian areas or diverse and lively city spaces.

All the correlations point toward the positive advantages of greater central city housing. In a world context, cities with more "living centres" are associated with: a more consolidated, centralised metropolitan area with higher overall population and job densities and a stronger inner area; less road requirements per capita with a commensurate increase in the intensity of road use but also a positive improvement in public transport speed; greater rail orientation of the public transport system; a much better performing public transport system with greater service provision and annual trips per person, greater number of passengers picked up per km of service and lower energy input per km of passenger travel; and more balanced transport systems reflected in generally lower car ownership and use, greater use of public transport, walking and bicycling, in particular a higher proportion of the total passenger transport task on public transport....

Those cities around the world that have a vital, human, dynamic touch to them and are not vacuums at night also have significant numbers of people living right in the business area and surrounding streets.... Residents keep the city alive and safer at night and spawn many small businesses which can only survive with sufficient local population. This has a humanising and diversifying effect on the central area which can act as a drawcard to people from all over the city and help to develop the city's economic base.... The housing should encourage a representative cross section of the metro area population - young singles, retired people, families in various stages of the life cycle as well as people of all income levels....

A minimum central area population density of around 45/ha would be needed to cultivate the type of urban environment I have just described.... Gasoline use declines exponentially.... [A] free transit option could be a real drawcard to those seeking a more urban lifestyle or who do not wish to own a car.

High rise buildings should continue to be developed in the context of tighter parking controls and every effort should be made to improve overall public transport speed and accessibility. This should involve more bus lanes and priority to public transport, greater consolidation around the electric rail system, better pedestrian linkages between bus and rail stations and the office area and improved public transport circulation speed in the central city.... Cities grow organically. It is therefore important to abandon sterile zoning laws which designate one area of the city as a business district while banishing restaurants and homes elsewhere. It would be better to impose pro-residential policies in business districts and provide business incentives in suburbs. The best guarantors of diversity are small companies.

Kenworthy, Jeffrey R. "Transport Energy Conservation Through Urban Planning and Lifestyle Changes: Some Fundamental Choices for Perth" An Invited Review Paper as Background for the Development of a State Conservation Strategy for Western Australia, 1987.

Transport energy use and environmental quality are closely linked, with higher energy use being associated with greater environmental impact.... Transport energy use can ... be used as a ... "barometer" of many things which people may associate with the "quality of life" or lifestyles. Energy is burned in transport to join or hold things together, providing the essential links between human activities. The more efficiently and sensibly activities are planned, the more rationally land is used in a city, the less we have to move around, particularly in cars, and the less energy we burn. Thus the built-in need to burn a lot or a little energy in a city is reflected in ... many aspects of urban life.... What sort of a city do we we want and what kind of lifestyles do we want to be able to live?...

It is ... very much in the interests of all countries to maintain the oil conservation momentum developed in the 1970s. It seems to make good sense to continue moving away from dependence on a resource which in the long term must become scarcer and more expensive. This is particularly true of the transport sector which is overwhelmingly dependent on liquid fuels from oil. Unlike many sectors of the economy which ... have been able to substitute oil for other fuels ... and to reap very large efficiency savings, transport remains captive to the oil market. ... A technologilcal panacea to the oil problems of North American and Australian automobile cities [is] unlikely in the foreseeable future.... This turned us to consider ... the factors that actually cause or promote higher car dependence and hence high energy use in our cities, and how these factors might be changed to reduce energy demand.... How can we ... build greater energy efficiency into our cities?...

The size of a city per se is not a fundamental variable in per capita transport energy, but rather the land use patterns and other transport factors within each city are the important consideration.... Higher density [is] associated with lower energy use.... Catering for private cars in terms of roads and car parks [leads] to higher energy use. ... Cities with higher densities, particularly higher density inner areas, and greater centralisation, have well-developed radial electric rail systems.... They also cater much less for private cars in terms of road availability and parking facilities. This combination of factors adds up to a significantly lower use of energy than in the less centralised, lower density and more car-equipped cities ..., where buses are the main form of public transport and the rail systems are still not electrified.

COULD WE CONSERVE FUEL IF WE HAD TO? ... Oil company data for 1979 and 1980 showed how Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane responded to these large rises in the price of petroleum fuels by reducing their total transport energy consumption by between 1.9% and 5.1%. Adelaide's consumption, on the other hand, grew by 0.5%, but Perth's consumption rose unabated at 5.4%.... The continued growth of transport energy consumption in Perth and Adelaide at a time when Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne managed to reduce theirs is of considerable significance.... Residents of Melbourne and Sydney are afforded greater diversity in their choice of lifestyles than are residents of Perth and Adelaide.... If the redevelopment of central and inner city sites does not proceed at a rate which can offset the loss by people having to travel further in outer area locations, it would seem that the city as a whole will decline economically.... The cost of living in Perth in the five years from 1975/6 increased more than in any other Australian city....

In Los Angeles people assaulted each other to get petrol during the 1973/4 oil crisis ... in Holland they had car free days, closed the freeways and roller skated on them!... In the European cities there wasn't a single trip we couldn't comfortably and easily do on a bus, tram, subway, surface electric train, or on foot, and in a few cases on bikes.... People accept a higher density personal environment but all around them they have large, exciting and usable open spaces, and the countryside is generally only 20 to 30 minutes away. It is this higher density, compact nature of European cities which gives them their lower transport energy use. All the essentials of urban life are more at hand and mixed together in a much smaller area.... Motorised traffic and pedestrian/bicycle traffic [are] totally segregated. The roads tend to be in cuttings with small bridges crossing them at regular intervals.

Our friend from Perth who has lived [in Manhattan] eighteen years has never owned a car and never needed to. She walks to work and to most other activities and catches subways and buses for everything else. This is the rule rather than the exception in this area.... Car ownership is lower in New York City at all income levels, than anywhere [else] in the USA.... In most US cities one or two cars per household is virtually compulsory.... This style of life is becoming more and more common in the United States as people depopulate the large urban centres, particularly on the east coast, in preference for a small rural or semi-rural town on the urban fringe, as far away from the inner city as possible. The motives for this lifestyle in the US seem to be primarily a quest for the wide open spaces, the safety of a good neighborhood (as opposed to the high crime neighborhoods characteristic of the majority of US inner cities), good schools for families with children, and, of course, cheaper housing. Quite clearly however, one of the big costs in this style of life is a high petrol bill because most people still depend very strongly on the established urban centres for many services, facilities and also employment, and the only way to get there is by car.

Reflecting on this after fifteen weeks in convenient, spacious (and safe) European cities, it was difficult not to feel a little awry at the paradoxes built into this kind of living. There we were, 30 miles from Boston in the wide open spaces and almost no time to appreciate it because we were forever in a car needing to be somewhere else.

It would seem that the very least a city should offer its residents is affordable, convenient access to work and open space, a good level of personal safety and security for property and sound educational institutions at all levels. They are achieving neither the convenience, diversity and excitement of city life, nor the solitude and peace of rural life, but are spending a lot of time and energy frantically trying to knit together elements of both, in a sort of suburban no-man's

land....

In Perth in particular, massive investments are being made in motorised transport (especially new roads and freeways) simply to overcome the inefficiencies in the placement and density of activities.... We don't seem to have learned that transport is not an end in itself but a means of obtaining access to urban services.... Lack of good bicycle facilities [makes] leaving an expensive bike for ten hours an unattractive proposition.... Individual commitment to a more energy efficient and urban style of living [is] thwarted at every turn by a system that is geared overwhelmingly to the private car and the large suburban subdivision.

EASING CONGESTION TO SAVE FUEL. This factor of better vehicular fuel consumption in outer areas [due to higher average trip speeds] is completely swamped by the extra travel involved, so that the extreme outer area residents in fact use 30% more transport energy per capita than the Perth average. In the case of central area residents, although they have a much higher fuel consumption per kilometre in their vehicles, they have on average 23% lower total transport energy use due to shorter distances and greater use of public transport, bicycling and walking.

This has significant policy implications when it is considered that the smoothing of traffic flows and raising of average speeds through the building of new roads is partly justified on energy conservation grounds (fuel savings of new roads are calculated using computer models and translated into economic benefits). The results of this study would suggest that easing congestion does in fact generally increase fuel use due to its effect on model changes and greater urban sprawl.... It was shown that policies which encourage further increases in cruise speeds such as increasing speed limits, freeway building and road widening will be counter-productive for energy conservation. On the other hand, policies that minimise stops and idling periods while keeping cruise speeds close to 55 km/h [35 MPH!] will save fuel....

There are no grounds at all to suggest that smoother, faster flowing traffic is promotive of transport energy conservation overall. Certainly, the fuel efficiency of individual vehicles is improved but the benefits of this are totally swamped by more fundamental factors -- the orientation of the city away from public transport and strong centres which results in more and more compulsory car travel and ever increasing trip lengths.

Are outer area developments receiving large hidden subsidies? What are the real costs of the new road and freeway developments -- sewers, water mains, schools, medical centres, recreational facilities, community centres and so on which must be continually expanded using partly public money? Do these developments add to the public transport deficit and should developers be made to contribute to the cost of providing public transport services to these areas, the same way that they must contribute to some other services? How does continuing outer area growth contribute to inflation in urban goods and services through its increase in transport energy costs? In other words, is the government unintentionally planning the city into a less and less sustainable form through a series of hidden subsidies?

Conversely, the cost of land in more central locations is high, but what social benefits are accrued to the community as a whole by reductions in infrastructure costs, better utilised public transport services and lower overall transport costs? Is some form of public subsidy or "density bonusing" warranted in inner and middle areas to reflect their utilisation of already established and underused facilities such as schools, water mains, sewers and public transport services? Could a system be devised whereby developments in inner and middle areas are rated according to these factors and cost reductions to the buyer built into the purchase price of new dwellings?...

There should be a definite policy to positively reduce commuter parking in the central area of Perth while at the same time improving access time and circulation within the central city on public transport.... "carrot or stick measures" such as free transit and price differentials between transit and car travel are not effective in moving drivers out of cars and into public transport, but reducing parking and convenience is effective in this regard. Clearly, if parking is to be reduced then public transport must be made more attractive and the best way to do this is to give it a competitive edge in travel time....

Congestion can be strategically used to create a better balance between private and public transport, thus reducing energy demand and in the longer term fostering a more rational distribution of urban activities which reduces the need for car travel.... It is critically important ... to maximise use of the existing system while minimising construction of new roads....

As a biological system matures it increases in the diversity of plants and animals contained in it and in the complexity of interactions found between the various elements of the system. This diversity is fundamental to its stability and self-sustainability and determines how effectively it responds to changing pressures and circumstances. By way of contrast our man-made biological systems in the form of agricultural monocultures are inherently unstable and require large inputs of external resources and energy (e.g. fertilisers, pesticides and fossil fuels). Interruptions to these external inputs can cause the system to collapse or suffer extreme stress.

Similarly, as a city grows and matures it would seem important to ensure that it develops a degree of diversity and flexibility. In this way it will become more stable and sustainable in the fact of changing pressures and stresses. There is evidence to suggest that this process of diversification and a reaching of limits on monocultural growth occurs anyway. For example, there are many cities around the world which are currently installing new rail systems and revitalising their inner areas. Los Angeles, after years of automobile growth, is finding the need to install a light rail and heavy rail subway system. However, it is much better if we can consciously plan these changes instead of reaching difficult situations and then responding.

Certainly one of the biggest external inputs to any city is oil for transport. Given the ultimately finite nature of oil and the long-term character of cities and city planning, the logic of lowering a city's dependence on oil would seem to speak for itself.... The city will also benefit in the many other facets of urban life.... A change in emphasis on planning away from sprawl towards inner growth should not be seen as a restrictive or negative thing but as a positive and expansive process which has the potential to enrich and enliven the quality of urban life for everyone by creating a more diverse, convenient and interesting, human scale city.

Newman, Peter W. G., Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, and Thomas J. Lyons, "Transport Energy Conservation Policies for Australian Cities -- the Perspective from an International Comparison of Thirty-two Principal World Cities". End of Grant Report, Project No. 836, National Energy Research Development and Demonstration Council. Environmental Science, Murdoch University, August, 1987.

Re-Urbanisation: A major programme of inner area redevelopment at higher population and job densities is needed in each city. This ... should involve infill developments, intense mixed use developments of vacant land and redevelopment of existing industrial and warehousing sites. This should include re-development of housing and businesses on and near railway reserves [rights of way] where practicable and selling major road reserves for housing.... building up population densities around rapid transit routes ... curtailing new low density housing on the urban fringe. The degree of centralisation in ... cities should be increased. This should include a continuing concentration of jobs in the central city and in particular a strengthening of the residential character of the central city.

Re-Orientation of Transport Priorities: Parking [should be limited].... with expanded options for public transport, and increasing pedestrianisation of the central city.... Road provision per person is extremely high ... and should be lowered.... [Curtail] road-building funds.... Public transport performance ... should be continuously improved in terms of speed, energy efficiency and passenger attraction.... In particular, the importance of the rail system should be continually strengthened through electrification ... as well as new lines and extensions in all cities....

The major and ultimate purpose of the study was to establish policies at the urban level for reducing transport energy use.... lessening the vulnerability of a city to oil supply disruptions thus improving its sustainability in energy terms; minimising the effect of transport-related inflation and the national balance of payments due to imported oil; reducing the level of dependence on the private car; improving the balance between public and private transport, thus reducing public transport deficits; increasing the amount of non-motorised transport, i.e. walking and bicycling; improving the level of accessibility by the transport disadvantaged, i.e the elderly, children, poor people and handicapped, who cannot use a car; reducing the quantity of emissions and hence smog potential; lessening the possibilities of road accidents; and enhancing several less quantifiable variables concerning the "human" aspects of a city, especially the attraction of the central city....

Even in a city like Denver where there is a strong policy to encourage bus usage due to the smog, only 1.8% of total passenger travel is by public transport. It is only in the U.S. cities with rail systems that any significant proportion of transport is by non-automobile modes e.g. San Francisco 7%, Chicago 8%, New York 14%. The proportion of total transit passenger kms by rail in these cities is San Francisco 34%, Chicago 66%, New York 78%.... European cities on average have 24% public transport use for the total passenger transport task (passenger kms) and for the work journey 21% of trips are by bicycling/walking.... 71% of passenger kms are on rail.... [In Asia] 63% of the transport task is by public transport and 25% of people go to work by walking or biking (32% in Hong Kong). In ... Tokyo only 16% of the people use a car to go to work and in the public transport system 95% of passenger kms are by rail....

It could be concluded that any city seriously wishing to change the private car/public transport equilibrium in favor of public transport, must move in the direction of rail-based systems....

The automobile cities of the U.S. and Australia provide around three to four times as much road per capita as ... European cities and nearly seven to nine times as much as ... Asian cities.... There is a strong correlation between gasoline consumption and provision for the automobile in terms of road supply and parking. Also the significant positive correlation between average speed and gasoline use highlights one of the traffic management controversies. There is clearly less gasoline use in cities with low average speeds which contradicts those traffic planners who suggest freeing up congestion to increase average speeds will save gasoline.... Although free flowing traffic may improve individual vehicle efficiencies the evidence suggests that it also causes overall fuel consumption increases presumably due to greater private vehicle use.... Economic factors explain [only] around half of the gasoline use.... Thus planners who provide the transport infrastructure or who set out the physical plan of a city are directly and actively influencing transport patterns, they are not just responding to economic factors.... In terms of policy this is extremely important. The econometric models suggest that there is little that can be done other than taxing gasoline and vehicles or legislating for better vehicle fuel efficiency.... However, it is the main thrust of this report that the urban land use and transport infrastructure variables must also be addressed....

Brisbane was much closer to Sydney and Melbourne in its energy use in 1976 and this was primarily explained in terms of its high level of traffic restraint. However, since that time Brisbane has had a major freeway building programme and appears to have lost its energy conserving edge (its energy use is now closer to Perth which is the highest in Australia).

There need to be controls over the level of parking.... This would require a concurrent policy that provides good public transport access.... The level of road provision is over 50% higher in the worst energy category than the next best and would imply the need for a policy of curtailing road funding.... Single family housing requires around seven times as much road length as that for high rise apartments. Considerable road savings could be anticipated if a reurbanisation policy is instituted. The money generated from road project savings and from selling major road reserves could be used for better traffic management of the existing road system and general improvements in public transport necessary to assist these cities in moving towards a lower energy model.

Improvements in the performance of public transport in terms of speed, energy efficiency and passenger attraction [are necessary].... Most significantly however is a dramatic increase in the importance of rail systems -- the proportion of the public transport task performed by trains increases by over 4 times that in the very poor energy conserving cities... These land use and transport policies would appear to have the potential for reducing per capita transport energy use of cities in the worst group by up to about 20%.

Kenworthy, Jeffrey R., Peter W. G. Newman, and Thomas J. Lyons, "Transport Energy Conservation Policies for Australian Cities". Progress Report for NERDDC Project Number 86/6119, December, 1987, School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Murdoch University

A major part of the last nine months has involved extensive communication and dissemination of this work, especially practical input into policy making and lobbying organisations, concerned with changes in Australian urban planning towards more energy efficient urban forms.... Portland is an ideal case study for Australian cities, since it demonstrates how a city can fundamentally begin to change its transportation priorities away from cars towards public transport.... The light rail system was built in place of an interstate urban freeway which was to cut through the Portland area removing 1% of Portland's housing stock (over 3000 homes). The US interstate freeway funding system provides for withdrawal of planned freeways with an option to use the total funds that would have been expended on other transportation projects including public transport. Boston was the first city to take advantage of this option and improve public transport....

The Portland central area has undergone a revitalisation in terms of urban design based around more human-oriented developments.... A ceiling on the number of parking spaces allowed in downtown Portland has prevented a blow out in this factor and assisted the viability of public transport.... Portland has won priority for its light rail system at traffic lights where it runs on the normal road system. It has also created special bus transit streets which give buses a clear run through the traffic....

Specific action is being taken on these broad directions through an informal group under the auspices of the State Parliament Member for Perth, Dr Ian Alexander. We have thus established some direct links with the political and policy making machinery in Perth which will help to ensure that this NERDDC sponsored study of Perth will not be relegated to a bookshelf.... There has been a very large increase in the "implementation" aspects of the project due to recent large scale media attention.

Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, "Transport and Urban Form in Thirty-Two of the World's Principal Cities". Paper for International Symposium on Transport, Communication and Urban Form, Monash University, 24-26 August 1987. Environmental Science, Murdoch University, Western Australia 6150.

Gasoline use. US cities use on average twice as much gasoline per capita as in Australian cities, four times as much as in European cities and ten times as much as in Asian cities. Moscow which has almost no private car use, manages on a mere 380 MJ per capita which is nearly two-hundred times less than US cities....

Only the rail option can compete with cars as the average speed of urban trains is 42 km/h in the US, 45 km/h in Sydney, 43 km/h in Europe and 40 km/h in Tokyo (compared to 21 km/h for cars).... In general, bus based public transport systems seem to have an in-built limit on operating speed of no more than 25 km/h, and thus cannot be considered genuine competitors in speed to the car in any city.... Any city seriously wishing to change the private car/public transport equilibrium in favour of public transport, must move in the direction of rail-based systems.

It would appear to be more important to have higher residential densities mixed in with the employment activity if there is to be much less dependence on the automobile.... There is clearly less gasoline use in cities with low average speeds which contradicts those traffic planners who suggest freeing up congestion to increase average speeds will save gasoline....

It would appear from the data presented that the transport patterns (and urban form) of a city would be [improved] if the following were adopted. A policy to restrict the amount of road supply within a city to something around 2m to 3m per capita. This would essentially mean curtailing new road projects that pass through the city.... A policy to restrict central city parking to a level around 200 spaces per 1000 CBD workers.... A policy accepting that average speeds in a city of around 30 km/h are adequate. This means rejecting the notion that fuel is saved by increasing average speeds. A policy that provides a rapid transit option (most likely to be rail) which is substantially faster than the average traffic speed in the city and together with other improvements slowly builds up public transport in stages so that it provides something more like 20 to 30% of total passenger kms.... A policy that encourages pedestrianisation, "woonerf" treatment of streets and bicycle facilities so that the proportion of work journeys by bicycling and walking rises to something more like 20% rather than its present 5% in automobile cities....

Such policies are unlikely to be successful unless they are wedded to the following land use policies.... A policy to increase by stages the intensity of urban activity overall so that population densities of around 30/ha to 40/ha and job densities of around 20/ha are obtained.... A policy to build up the central city activity intensity so that job densities are maintained at more than 300/ha and population densities are built up to over 50 to 60/ha.... A policy to build up or maintain the inner area at population densities of 40 to 50/ha and job densities of similar levels.... A policy to build up outer area urban activity to population densities of around 20 to 30/ha and job densities of around 15/ha.

Kenworthy, Jeffrey R. and Peter W. G. Newman, "Learning from the Best and Worst: Transportation and Land Use Lessons from Thirty-Two International Cities with Implications for Gasoline Use and Emissions". Paper given to an International Pedestrian conference in Boulder, Colorado in October, 1987. School of Environmental and Life Sciences, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.

[On] balanced urban transportation systems.... Although ... these studies are technically oriented and have transportation energy conservation as their major aim, their results have much broader implications. In particular, the land use and transportation policy directions needed to reduce gasoline use in cities can also contribute positively to solving many of the human, social, economic and environmental problems facing cities. These problems include: Growing frustration and pressures on personal freedom as urban living becomes dictated by longer and longer travel distances, traffic congestion and parking considerations; Impossibility of bicycling and walking because of sheer distances involved and the non-viability of transit for most trips; A large proportion of transportation disadvantaged people (children, the elderly, the poor and handicapped persons who can't use cars -- up to 50% in many cities); Transportation related inflation and increased balance of payments problems from imported oil; A high public transportation deficit and diminishing services; High levels of enviromental impact from traffic and roads including vehicular emissions (especially photochemical smog), noise, visual intrusion and social severance of neighborhoods; High costs of urban development as new roads, sewers, schools, community centres, transit services etc. are built (and duplicated) farther from the city centre and the old inner areas decline in population and decay; Loss of human vitality, intimacy and neighborliness due to lack of mixing between houses, shops and other activities (i.e. excessively rigid zoning); Central cities that are merely functional and sterile corporate centres lacking in human attractiveness and increasingly dangerous especially after work hours; Social problems of excessive privacy and isolation and increasing crime assisted by the lack of community (e.g. the need for formal neighborhood watch schemes to replace what was once the natural function of urban comunity). Many of these issues may seem remote from the major thrust of this paper on land use, transportation and gasoline use in cities but there are clear connections due to the fundamental way that transportation influences the shape of cities and hence how we live....

Moscow, a city of 8 million people, is not a valid comparison for Western cities as it has almost no private car ownership, but it is interesting to see that it is possible to run a major city virtually without gasoline.... As cities become denser in population and jobs, have a greater orientation to non-automobile modes, are more restrained in their provision for road traffic, are more developed around a strong central area and have greater public transportation performance their gasoline use diminishes.... This study appears to be the only one to have ever comprehensively set out the physical planning and transportation features of international cities so that planners, engineers and others can see the inextricable and highly systematic link that exists between land use and transportation.... The data suggest some broad policy directions ... Re-urbanization and ... Re-orientation of transportation priorities....

Land Use Intensity -- Increase population and job densities throughout the city, but especially in the inner areas.... Centralisation -- Increase the importance of the central area in terms of resident population and jobs.... Significant improvement in ... orientation away from cars towards transit and also considerable improvements in the performance of transit in terms of speed, service provision, energy efficiency and passenger attraction... Clearly a major policy direction ... is to work towards an electric rapid transit system... Rail-based transit provides much stronger competition to the automobile than buses and is an essential step in developing a really viable public transit system....

There [need] to be controls over the level of parking.... There would clearly need to be a curtailing of major new urban road projects designed to create greater road capacity in the existing urban area, or to service (promote?) further outward extension of the urban area.... It is not always in the best overall interests of a city to treat congestion as a negative thing and to constantly be about getting rid of it.... Without congestion and the recognition that it is signalling limits to automobile transportation, there is very little pressure to move towards a more compact, sustainable urban form with a balance and diversity of transportation modes (e.g Los Angeles' rail developments are strongly linked to growing congestion which the freeways and secondary roads just can't cope with and developments are now intensively concentrating along Wilshire Boulevard in proximity to the new subway). Of course this approach to traffic systems and particularly congestion goes against most prevailing philosophies, technical assessments and solutions offered by the field of traffic engineering....

There is a longstanding observation that automobiles get higher miles per gallon in smooth, free-flowing traffic and poor miles per gallon in stop-start, congested traffic. It appears that this observation was first systematically examined in Detroit by Carmichael and Haley (1950) using a vehicle set up with various statistical instruments. Their work was later extended by Stonex (1957) in a study of Los Angeles' traffic characteristics.... The basic problem arises when research at the [vehicle level] is accepted as necessarily valid [at higher levels, e.g.] corridors of a city or the whole city....

Most major cost-benefit models justifying road proposals incorporate significant community benefits from fuel savings (and sometimes emissions) based on improvements in the fuel economy and emissions of individual vehicles in the traffic stream. Such models have had virtually universal acceptance for around 40 years.... "It is based on the performance of a single passenger vehicle and does not take into account the extra distance travelled on the arterial road system." (p.4 Royalauto July, 1982) ... Vehicles in central areas have 19% lower fuel efficiency than the Perth average due to congestion but the central area residents use 22% less actual fuel, and conversely, congestion-free outer suburban driving is 12% more fuel efficient than average but residents use 29% more actual fuel....

The feedback parameters such as land use factors and modes of travel exert an influence on gasoline use far in excess of the fuel efficiency of vehicles as determined by traffic conditions. In other words in the congested but denser and more compact central and inner areas travel distances are shorter for all modes and there is greater use of public transportation, walking and cycling. In outer areas where densities of development are low, travel distances are long and a much higher proportion of travel is by automobile with less public transportation, walking and cycling....

The traffic engineering model is actually promotive of increased gasoline use in cities, i.e. if gasoline conservation is sought through programmes which aim at "blanket" increases in average speed (e.g. freeways and other road building activities such as lane increases), these will almost certainly result in a less fuel-efficient city overall. A major reason for this is that such programmes push a city further and further towards total reliance on the automobile and away from a balanced transportation system....

[A] survey attempted to find out how many people might transfer from transit to cars should congestion be significantly reduced or eliminated in the corridor. The survey showed some 17.2% of bus passengers and 11.0% of train passengers would transfer if the congestion was eased. It was calculated that if only half of these passengers actually did transfer to cars, the extra gasoline use would be enough to cancel out the savings from a computer-coordinated set of traffic signals along the corridor designed to smooth out traffic flows....

A study of the fuel and time implications of freeway speed limits in Perth indicated that optimal fuel efficiency occurs at cruise speeds of 55 km/h [35 MPH].... It was shown that policies which encourage further increases in cruise speeds such as increasing speed limits, freeway building and road widening will be counter-productive for energy conservation. On the other hand, policies that minimise stops and idling periods while keeping cruise speeds close to 55 km/h will save fuel....

Figure 7 shows clearly that while vehicles driven in the Perth central area at 33.8 km/h average speed have 17% to 27% more HC and CO emissions respectively per kilometre of travel relative to the average for Perth, residents of the area actually generate 19% to 21% less total CO and HC respectively due to their smaller use of the automobile and greater use of other modes. Conversely in outer areas there is a positive benefit in terms of emissions from vehicles with the average speed of 52.2 km/h yielding 9% to 16% lower emissions per kilometre (HC and CO respectively) than the average for Perth. However, residents of the outer suburbs actually generate some 24% to 27% more CO and HC respectively than the average for Perth residents due to their longer auto travel distances and less use of other modes.... In other words higher average traffic speeds tend to spread the city creating lower density land use, a greater need for cars, longer travel distances and reduced use of other less polluting or pollution free modes. The benefits gained in terms of less polluting traffic streams are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of extra travel and the resulting bulk of emissions....

The range of bus speeds for the cities is remarkably small tending to be around 20 to 21 km/h and never exceeding 25 km/h. On the other hand, those cities with significant rail-systems tend to have much faster overall transit operating speeds because rail systems have average speeds typically above 40 km/h and up to 55 km/h in some cases. Such systems provide very good competition to the automobile for speed of access.... Rail systems again emerge as being crucial factors in promoting a more efficcient and balanced transportation system. In each city where there is a significant rail system the average speed of automobiles and the overall average speed of transit are much closer to one another and in quite a few cases transit actually exceeds the automobile. In cities where buses are the major form of public transit, average transit speeds are generally half that of the automobile and markedly unbalanced transportation systems are the result (e.g. Houston, Phoenix and Denver)....

The relatively simple methods used to provide traffic engineering cost/benefit analyses of new roads are not realistic.... Fuel savings (and emissions reductions if they are included) should no longer be part of urban road project justification since it appears that new roads that improve traffic speeds actually generate higher fuel use and more emissions overall....

The individual city dweller has a key role to play and it is often ignorance or dare I say, selfishness on the individual's part that can be a key force in promoting less balanced cities.... If the aim is always to maximise private environmental amenity then the result is often public squalor. It is an onus on every city dweller to realise that they are individuals within a system and must of necessity make some sacrifices for the good life of the city as a whole.... However, what may apppear at first to be a sacrifice or denial of something soon turns out to be an improvement in the quality of urban life for all.... The potential for building a good urban environment is only as great as the vision and the will to do it.

Newman, Peter W.G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, "Gasoline Consumption and Cities: A Comparison of U.S. Cities with a Global Survey". APA Journal, Winter, 1989, pp.24-37.

Gasoline consumption per capita in ten large United States cities varies by up to 40 percent, primarily because of land use and transportation planning factors, rather than price or income variations.... We suggest physical planning policies, particularly reurbanization and a reorientation of transportation priorities as a means of reducing gasoline consumption and automobile dependence.

Assessments of United States oil dependence suggest that the widening gap between consumption and production is a cause for concern, given the U.S. government's deficit and potential political vulnerability in the 1990's.... Conserving oil has been strongly advocated for other environmental, economic, and social reasons as well.... Policies to reduce oil consumption in the United States have successfully concentrated on stationary uses (e.g. industry and home heating) and improving vehicle fuel efficiency rather than on reducing the need for motor vehicle use. Studies rarely focus on cities, and those that do generally suggest that only minimal energy savings would result from greater use of transit and land use changes....

Studies have shown that, the more intensive the land use, the shorter the distances of travel, the greater the viability of transit (more people per stop and hence better service), the greater the amount of biking and walking, the higher the occupancy of vehicles and, overall, the less need for a car.... The strongest ralationship is with the population density in the inner area.... [The] pattern of lower gasoline use per capita in areas with lower average traffic speeds is confirmed by the overall pattern ... and does not support studies (and the view of most traffic authorities) that suggest there will be fuel savings when average speeds are increased due to better vehicle efficiency....

The availability of roads and central parking follows the pattern of gasoline consumption with highly significant positive correlations.... A stylized picture emerges of a low transportation-energy city with a dense form, a strong center, and intensively utilized suburbs (especially the inner area) that provide the backbone for a significantly better transit system and more walking and biking.... There is a theoretical potential for fuel savings of some 20 to 30 percent in cities like Houston and Phoenix, if they were to become something more like Boston or Washington, in urban structure. This would require a modest increase in the intensity of urban activity and the provision of a basic rail transit system....

It appears from this study that the effects of land use and transit are more strongly interconnected than expected and that substituting car trips by transit results in more than just improved technological efficiency. Rather, it fosters a total change in transportation patterns, including an increase in walking and biking, and shorter distances for all modes, including car trips....

The relationship suggests a strong increase in gasoline consumption where population density is under 12 people per acre.... Low density appears to have a multiplicative effect, not only ensuring longer distances for all kinds of travel but making all nonautomobile modes virtually impossible, since many people live too far from a transit line and walking and biking become impossible.... Toronto is one of the few cities in the world with well-developed policies for transportation energy conservation based on land use strategies....

There are a variety of policies with potential to save fuel. They include: Increasing urban density; Strengthening the city center; Extending the proportion of city that has inner-area land use; Providing a good transit option; and Restraining the provision of automobile infrastructure.

Many European cities are as compact as Amsterdam and Copenhagen, but these two are noted for strong commitments to bicyclists and pedestrians. Vienna's priorities were summed up by its mayor when he stated that "unlimited individual mobility ... is an illusion," that "the future belongs to the means of public transportation," and that the need for public transportation will be "a driving force of city renewal".

Planned congestion. "Woonerf" is also labeled planned congestion, as it involves placing a limit on private vehicle movement and adjusting priorities to give advantage to other transportation modes. It also involves the acceptance of limits on the provision of parking (as recently announced in Chicago) and the level of road availability; it shifts the orientation from road construction to traffic system management.... A less car-dependent transportation system is far more equitable, especially for the young.... The transition to a lower gasoline-using city need not be painful if the perceived problems from congestion are consistently being offset by real gains in access through new transit systems and new, more centrally located housing.

Newman, Peter W. G. and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy, "The Use and Abuse of Driving Cycle Research: Clarifying the Relationship between Traffic Congestion, Energy and Emissions". Transportation Quarterly, Vol.38, No.4, October, 1984 (615-635).

"We expect that improvements in traffic quality can reduce travel time which, in turn, can directly produce a reduction in fuel consumption." (M. F. Chang and R. Herman, Transportation Science 12, No.1 (1978) p.75) Thus, data from a single instrumented vehicle is being used to make conclusions about the entire urban system; in their words: "Therefore, improving the urban traffic system by increasing its average speed offers considerable fuel economy benefits."... Driving cycle research ... has been used as the foundation for several policy developments. Road organizations have used the material as the basis for their claim that more money should be spent on roads....

Fuel consumption in U.S. cities as predicted by Chang and Herman's 1978 survey should have been lower in cities with higher average speeds. But a 1974 study by Watt and Ayers indicated that the reverse was actually true. In a study of 37 cities, those with the greatest number of freeways had the highest fuel consumption [per capita].... Watt and Ayers concluded: "... the need to travel by car in cities is a far less important determinant of gasoline consumption than the ease with which long distance travelling can be done at high speed by car within urban areas. In other words, freeways do not solve the gasoline consumption problems, they promote [them].... Clearly, significant savings in gasoline could be effected by more use of public transportation and by a cessation of freeway building." (Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, San Francisco, 1974.)...

"It is ... vital to an objective of [reduced] fuel consumption and reduced air pollution through traffic management measures to view the overall effect in the city, not merely the immediate effect on the route concerned. The motorist's dream of free-flowing, uncongested roads may well reduce the fuel consumption and emissions of individual vehicles. But because this is a motorist's dream, the odds are that more motorists will take advantage of the conditions, or the same motorists will make more trips or longer trips. The savings from individual vehicles could be wiped out by generated traffic if free flowing conditions are indiscriminately pursued." (Rohrlach and Dobinson, SAE, ARRB Conf., July, 1980)

Old (linear) model:

Free--higher-->Average--lower-->Fuel Consumpt.--Lower->Overall

Flowing Speeds & Emissions in Fuel

Traffic Indiv. Vehicle Consump. &

Emissions

in City

New (feedback) model (free-flowing traffic):

----------------------------------->Incr. Use--------------

| of Cars |

| | |

| higher |

| | |

| v v

Free---lower-->Fuel Consumpt.--lower->Overall<--higher--Decr. Use

Flowing & Emissions in Fuel of Public

Traffic Indiv. Vehicle Consump. & Transit,

| Emissions Biking, &

| in City Walking

| ^ ^

| | |

| higher |

| | |

----------------------------------->Longer Dist.-----------

Travelled

New (feedback) model (congested traffic):

----------------------------------->Decr. Use--------------

| of Cars |

| | |

| lower |

| | |

| v v

Con---higher-->Fuel Consumpt.-higher->Overall<---lower--Incr. Use

Gested & Emissions in Fuel of Public

Traffic Indiv. Vehicle Consump. & Transit,

| Emissions Biking, &

| in City Walking

| ^ ^

| | |

| lower |

| | |

----------------------------------->Shorter Dist.----------

Travelled

Newman, P. W. G. and J. R. Kenworthy, "The Transport Energy Trade-Off: Fuel-Efficient Traffic Versus Fuel-Efficient Cities". Transportation Research-A, Vol.22A, No.3, pp.163-174, 1988.

Improving fuel efficiency in vehicular traffic by increasing average speeds is shown to have a major trade-off through land use changes and modal shifts that result in an overall loss in fuel efficiency for the total urban area. In Perth, even though vehicles in central areas have a 19% lower fuel efficiency than average due to congestion, the central area residents still use 22% less actual fuel on average due to their locational advantages. On the other hand, outer suburban traffic is 12% more efficient than average but residents use 29% more actual fuel. A comparison of 32 world cities confirms that there is a trade-off between fuel-efficient traffic and fuel-efficient cities. The implications for traffic engineering programmes and road funding are discussed...

This study shows that locational and modal split factors are more important for energy conservation than is traffic management designed to improve vehicle fuel efficiency. It suggests that any traffic management strategy which also implies or facilitates longer travel distances and less use of public transport, bicycling, and walking will be counterproductive to the aim of producing more fuel-efficient cities. In other words, if transport energy conservation is sought through programmes which aim at "blanket" increases in average speed (e.g., freeways and other road building activities such as lane increases), these will almost certainly result in a less fuel-efficient city overall....

We suggest that the overall guiding principles for achieving more fuel-efficient cities should be to: (i) Use strong planning regulation to contain the city and prevent leap-frogging of new suburbs; (ii) Increase housing densities near major public transport spines and in central areas through redevelopment and in-fill incentives (e.g., encourage dual occupancy); (iii) Ensure a strong city centre with well-defined sub-centres rather than allowing dispersal of retail, office, and other central city functions; (iv) Encourage mixed land use between housing, amenable, low-impact light industries, and various commercial, retail, and service functions; (v) Develop rapid transit linkages through high-density areas, coordinated with bus interchanges and bicycle facilities at sub-centres....

Fuel conservation should not be used to help justify major urban road programmes.

Newman, P.W.G, J.R. Kenworthy and T.J. Lyons, "Does Free-Flowing Traffic Save Energy and Lower Emissions in Cities?" Search, Vol.19, No.5/6, September/November, 1988.

Free-flowing traffic does not save energy or lower emissions overall in a city contrary to previous assertions. This is despite the clear advantages in efficiency for individual vehicles....[emphasis added]

Road lobby organisations constantly feed the general public a view that more urban freeways will be in the national interest to conserve valuable oil reserves.... Such statements do not question whether improved individual vehicle efficiencies from free-flowing traffic will automatically mean fuel savings and emissions reductions overall in cities. The question needs to be asked and answered.... The land use is fundamental in determining how much people use a car.... It appears that the feedback parameters such as land-use factors and modes of travel exert an influence on gasoline use far in excess of the fuel efficiency of vehicles as determined by traffic conditions. In other words, in the congested but denser and more compact central and inner areas travel distances are shorter for all modes and there is a greater use of public transport, walking and cycling. In outer areas densities of development are low, travel distances are long and a much higher proportion of travel is by automobile with less public transport, walking and cycling....

Free-flowing traffic is associated with increased fuel use and increased emissions....[emphasis added] High gasoline use is also closely linked to the degree to which the city provides automobile infrastructure in the form of roads and car parking. Thus the international cities comparison suggests that a policy of free-flowing traffic is not a policy for energy conservation, rather it creates greater car dependency in cities through progressively less dense, less centralised land-use patterns, greater overall provision for cars and diminishing viability of public transport, walking and bicycling....

Travel time ... The data indicate that despite the massive infrastructure for motorised private travel there is no obvious travel time savings in those cities with a large commitment to the automobile -- people on average just spend more time in cars....

Urban road project justification The cost-benefit analyses of major road projects usually incorporate time savings, fuel savings and occasionally emissions in their justification. The research outlined here suggests that in urban situations the simple assumptions used in these models are probably wrong.... As millions of dollars of investment are directed annually into urban roads it would appear to be essential for their justification to be valid. The research conducted here would suggest that fuel (and emissions) would probably be a cost and not a benefit in any complete calculation that involved the whole city....

Rather than something which must always be eradicated, congestion can actually be creatively exploited as a tool in helping a city progress towards lower car dependency and lower energy use through a better balance between cars, public transport, walking and bicycling. This concept has sometimes bern referred to as "planned congestion". "Planned congestion" could be seen as an opportunity to help contain the outer growth of cities, develop more efficient, concentrated nodes of urban activity, shorten travel distances and in particular it could give priority to public transport. This approach has many benefits including the reduction of transport energy use in our cities.... This understanding can enable congestion to be used as a positive force in improving cities for many purposes including energy and emissions considerations.