Transportation Planning for Small Urban Areas
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NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM REPORT TRANSPORTATION PLANNING FOR SMALL URBAN AREAS TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD 1976 Officers HAROLD L. MICHAEL, Chairman ROBERT N. HUNTER, Vice Chairman W. N. CAREY, JR., Executive Director Executive Committee HENRIK E. STAFSETH, Executive Director, American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials (ex officio) NORBERT T. TIEMANN, Federal Highway Administrator, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) ROBERT E. PATRICELLI, Urban Mass Transportation Administrator, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) ASAPH H. HALL, Federal Railroad Administrator, U.S. Department of Transportation (ex officio) HARVEY BROOKS, Chairman, Commission on Sociotechnical Systems, National Research Council (ex officio) JAY W. BROWN, Director of Road Operations, Florida Department of Transportation (ex officio. Past Chairman 1974) MILTON PIKARSK.Y, Chairman of the Board, Chicago Regional Transportation Authority (ex officio. Past Chairman 1975) GEORGE H. ANDREWS, Vice President (Transportation Marketing), Sverdrup and Parcel KURT W. BAUER, Executive Director, Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission LANGHORNE BOND, Secretary, Illinois Department of Transportation MANUEL CARBALLO, Secretary of Health and Social Services, State of Wisconsin L. S. CRANE, President, Southern Railway System JAMES M. DAVEY Consultant B. L. DEBERRY, Engineer-Director, Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation LOUIS J. GAMBACCINI, Vice President and General Manager, Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation HOWARD L. GAUTHIER, Professor of Geography, Ohio State University ALFRED HEDEFINE, Senior Vice President, Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas FRANK C. HERRINGER, Manager-Director, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District ANN R. HULL, Delegate, Maryland General Assembly ROBERT N. HUNTER, Chief Engineer, Missouri State Highway Commission PETER G. KOLTNOW, President, Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility A. SCHEFFER LANG, Assistant to the President, Association of American Railroads BENJAMIN LAX, Director, Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology DANIEL McFADDEN, Professor of Economics, University of California HAROLD L. MICHAEL, School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University J. PHILLIP RICHLEY, Vice President (Engineering and Construction), The Cafaro Company RAYMOND T. SCHULER, Commissioner, New York State Department of Transportation WILLIAM K. SMITH, Vice President (Transportation), General Mills PERCY A. WOOD, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, United Air Lines NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Advisory Committee HAROLD L. MICHAEL, Purdue University (Chairman) ROBERT N. HUNTER, Missouri State Highway Commission HENRIK E. STAFSETH, Amer. Assn. of State Hwy. and Transp. Officials NORBERT T. TIEMANN, U.S. Department of Transportation HARVEY BROOKS, National Research Council JAY W. BROWN, Florida Department of Transportation W. N. CAREY, JR., Transportation Research Board General Field of Transportation Planning Area of Urban Transportation Advisory Panel for Project B8-7A JOHN K. MLADINOV, New York Stale Department of JOSEPH L. SCHOFER, Northwestern University Transportation (Chairman) ALI F. SEVIN, Federal Highway Administration MALCOLM F. BRENAN, West Virginia Department of Highways REX WIANT, Iowa Department of Transportation ROY A. FLYNT, JR., City of White Plains, N.Y. KEVIN E. HEANUE, Federal Highway Administration STEPHEN G. PETERSEN, Consultant J. A. SCOTT, Transportation Research Board IRVING J. RUBIN, Ford Motor Company Program Staff K. W. HENDERSON, JR., Program Director DAVID K. WITHEFORD, Assistant Program Director HARRY A. SMITH, Projects Engineer LOUIS M. MACGREGOR, Administrative Engineer ROBERT E. SPICHER, Projects Engineer JOHN E. BURKE, Projects Engineer HERBERT P. ORLAND, Editor R. IAN KINGHAM, Projects Engineer PATRICIA A. PETERS, Associate Editor ROBERT J. REILLY, Projects Engineer EDYTHE T. CRUMP, Assistant Editor FOREWORD This report is of principal interest to those concerned with the estimation of travel demand in urban areas with populations of 50,000 or less. Transportation planners By Staff concerned with growth of small urban areas and/or improving mobility of residents Transportation in small urban areas will find this report to be helpful in developing plans for Research Board highways, streets, and public transportation. The report stresses the importance of organizing transportation planning procedures to generate solutions for the specific problems of concern to a small urban area. Examples of several typical problems are given, together with the recommended procedures to follow. The nature of small urban area transportation problems is described in terms of scale, purpose, time frame, and level of detail. These elements are considered within the context of institutional arrangements, personnel, and finances. Land-use input to transportation planning techniques was found to be most appropriately developed by hand methods heavily dependent upon the planner's knowledge of the urban area and the exercising of professional judgment in an ad hoc or opportunistic fashion. Four types of transportation plan• ning techniques were recommended for application in small urban areas: (a) net• work simulation based on synthetic models and a small-sample household survey, (b) consumer-oriented transit planning, (c) simple techniques for corridor analysis, and (d) hand-computation-oriented procedures for estimating localized impacts of major traffic generators. Under each type, existing techniques were reviewed and tested (to varying levels). Examples are: cross classification and synthetic models under network analysis, corridor growth traffic forecasting model, use of work trip to update continuing transportation studies, development of a consumer- oriented approach to determining local transit needs, and providing activity center traffic estimates to assist in assessing the localized impact of land-use changes on the transportation system. CONTENTS 1 SUMMARY PART I 6 CHAPTER ONE Introduction and Research Approach Existing Urban Transportation Planning Processes Problem Statement Research Program Organization of the Report 9 CHAPTER TWO Findings Organizational Framework Introduction Basic Organizational Issues Components of the Organizational Framework Customization 16 CHAPTER THREE Findings. Land-Use/Transportation Planning Introduction Review of Current Practice in Land-Use Planning Future Practice. Land Use/Transportation Customization- A Route to Simplified Planning 22 CHAPTER FOUR Interpretation, Appraisal, and Application Simplified Network Procedures Internal Trip Generation Coordination of Land-Use and Transportation Planning Data Traffic Forecasting Procedures Updating Travel Patterns for Continuing Planning Process Simplified Techniques Small Urban Area Transit Planning Transportation Corridor Analysis Localized Traffic Impact Estimating Procedure 45 CHAPTER FIVE Conclusions and Suggestions for Future Re• search Conclusions Suggestions for Future Research 46 REFERENCES PART II 49 APPENDIX A Officials Selected for Personal Interviews 49 APPENDIX B Survey of Plan Documents 52 APPENDIX c Household Stratification Models 56 APPENDIX D Current Practice for Transportation Planning m Small Urban Areas 57 APPENDIX E Household Category Models for Trip Production 60 APPENDIX F Comparison of Synthetic Trip Production and Attraction Relationships 66 APPENDIX G Corridor Technique ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research reported herein was conducted by the Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, and the Graduate School of Planning at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with William L. Greece as principal investigator. Sincere appreciation is expressed to the Urban Transportation Planning Division, Tennessee Department of Transportation; the Division of Planning, Office of Transportation Planning, Kentucky Department of Transportation; and the Transporta• tion Research Center of the University of Tennessee for gen• erously contributing of their time and data and providing computer assistance during the course of the project. The data and information supplied by the Southeastern Wisconsin Re• gional Planning Commission and the Thoroughfare Planning Section, North Carolina Department of Transportation, were useful in the analysis related to simplified network simulation models. Numerous meetings were held with individuals to discuss the nature of transportation—land-use planning in small urban areas The assistance of those who participated in these meet• ings is gratefully acknowledged The list of participants is included in Appendix A The principal research staff, all of the University of Ten• nessee, Knoxville, included- William L Grecco, Professor and Head, Department of Civil Engineering, Arun Chatterjee, As• sistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Fredenck J Wegmann, Professor of Civil Engineering, and James A Spencer, Pro• fessor and Director, Graduate School of Planning. Graduate assistants participating in the project included: Scott Cottrell, Robin McNulty, Donald Parnell, James Sellen, Phillip Sutton, and Rodney Worrell. NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM REPORT TRANSPORTATION PLANNING FOR SMALL URBAN AREAS W. L. GRECCO, F. J. WEGMANN, J. A. SPENCER AND A. CHATTERJEE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE RESEARCH SPONSORED BY THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND