This issue of ITE Journal is dedicated to transit, land use, and mobility integration. This topic brings me back to my teenage years in Toronto, where I depended on transit for mobility. My favorite song by Rush (a band I heard constantly on my favorite radio station growing up) is called “Subdivisions.” It resonated with me as I had moved from older inner Toronto to a new subdivision in Scarborough when I was 16. I fully identified with the opening lyrics “Sprawling on the fringes of the city, In geometric order…” When we moved into our newly constructed home, we were surrounded by other houses and had to drive everywhere. I continued at my downtown Toronto high school, so I used transit to get to school even though it took about an hour each way. Initially, my walk to the bus was 2 kilometers (1.3 miles).
Eventually, the bus was extended to our neighborhood, and it stopped a few hundred feet from my house. In retrospect, I wonder how many people did not choose transit for mobility because it wasn’t there from day one. The sad reality is that historically, transit has had to play catch-up. The need to financially justify any transit route has worked directly against the concept of “build it and they will come.” I pursued graduate studies in transportation planning out of a desire to focus on transit. My career path took me elsewhere. My niece Zoe and her friends in the Civil Engineering and Society program at McMaster University are passionate about transit. Listening to them discussing transit is both refreshing and nostalgic for me.
Transit-oriented development has been with us for a long time, but it tends to be applicable mostly around existing mass transit. Mixed-use development is another “new” idea that is actually quite old. ITE members have played a key role in quantifying the benefits of internalizing trips and sharing parking within mixed-use developments. In her 1967 landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs explores the value of mixed-use in supporting parks, restaurants, and other businesses. She discusses how restaurants in single-use areas survive on serving one meal a day (i.e., lunch or dinner), whereas in mixed-use areas, restaurants can benefit from serving two meals per day.
Lately, the roadway safety benefits of mixed-use developments and other land-use decisions, such as more compact design or the restriction of parking supply, have been getting attention, but far more research is needed. To start with, we must assess roadway fatalities and serious injuries based on population rather than vehicle-miles traveled. There is a simple truth that fewer vehicle-miles traveled equals less exposure, resulting in safer outcomes. If we keep focusing on fatalities and serious injuries per vehicle-miles traveled, we will likely overlook or minimize the potential for better outcomes that can be achieved by including land use decisions within our toolbox of strategies. Comparing fatality rates per 100,000 people across countries and states and provinces already suggests that land use patterns and transit usage influence roadway safety significantly.
While we can’t reshape existing communities all at once, we can work towards better roadway safety outcomes as redevelopment opportunities present themselves, so long as we know what to do!