Towards an understanding of the impact of deferring transit infrastructure implementation

Abstract

This paper presents progress on research into the physical and economic sustainability impact of deferring transit infrastructure investment, particularly rail, in urban growth areas. The topic is relevant to growing cities in developed countries, particularly in Australasia and North America, where development has been influenced by the mass availability of the automobile for some eighty years. The paper draws together a number of threads of current GIS-based research into the subject, encompassing urban form and structure, travel patterns, and the use and role of the transit system. It recognises the issue of path dependency in drawing these threads together and describes the basis of the developing methodology. The research is based primarily on a case study within the metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia. The present stage of the research will later translate to the generalised (economic) costs to the potential user population and other stakeholders, and to non-economic consequences such as loss of amenity and of local environments. The important conclusion from the work to date is that a sound understanding of urban structure - linkages, connectivity and transit orientation at both ends of trips involved (particularly the commute trip) - is fundamental. Consideration of population and employment density is important, but insufficient. Neither does examination of transit-oriented development at one end of the trip offer a complete picture. An understanding of structure at the metropolitan level is essential to the debate on transit-oriented urban form and key to examination of transit-based accessibility and to the factors associated with provision of the necessary infrastructure.

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