1 THE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT EXPERIENCE IN MADRID: EFFECTS ON 2 POPULATION SETTLEMENT AND LAND USE 3 4 Francisco J. Calvo*, PhD 5 Associate Professor 6 TRYSE Research Group 7 Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada 8 18071 Granada, Spain 9 Tel: +34 958 249452 10 [email protected] 11 12 Juan de Oña, PhD 13 Associate Professor 14 TRYSE Research Group 15 Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada 16 Tel: +34 958 249979 17 [email protected] 18 19 Fernando Arán 20 Researcher 21 TRYSE Research Group 22 [email protected] 23 24 Andrew Nash 25 Vienna Transport Strategies 26 [email protected] 27 28 Submission Date: November 7, 2012 29 Word Count: 30 5,349 (abstract+text; 6,850 including the references) + 3x250 (tables) + 6x250 (figures) = 31 9,100 words 32 33 (*) Corresponding author. 34 35 36 Calvo, de Oña, Arán and Nash Page: 2 1 ABSTRACT 2 Development of new transport systems often leads to demographic and socioeconomic 3 changes in the implementation area. However, the extent and type of these impacts varies 4 depending on the existing settlement patterns, socio-economic conditions and project 5 objectives. To help better understand these impacts this paper examines the effects of 6 building two new light rail lines in Madrid. The two lines were planned to serve different 7 functions and their service areas have different land use characteristics. LRT Line 1 was 8 designed to help promote urban development in a lightly settled area while Line 2 was 9 designed to encourage public transport in an already developed area. As expected, the 10 analysis shows that the impacts of these two lines have been very different. Along Line 1 a 11 large amount of new development has taken place and there have been large increases in 12 population, while along Line 2 land use and population are largely unchanged. This result 13 demonstrates the critical importance of integrated transport and land use planning in the 14 development of cities. 15 Calvo, de Oña, Arán and Nash Page: 3 1 THE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT EXPERIENCE IN MADRID: EFFECTS ON 2 POPULATION SETTLEMENT AND LAND USE 3 4 1. INTRODUCTION 5 One of the main goals for transport investment is to increase development and economic 6 value by increasing a settlement area’s accessibility. Importantly, transport does not exist in 7 a vacuum; it works hand-in-glove with an area’s urban planning. Thus a new transport 8 service alone will not lead to development, the area must be suitable for development and 9 this development must be supported by other infrastructure and policies contained within the 10 land use plan. 11 A key consideration for planners and policy-makers is determining the impact of new 12 transport projects on development and economic value. The research shows that the impact 13 is generally positive, but highly variable. Two of the most important factors are (1) whether 14 the transport project was part of a coordinated transportation-land-use plan; and, (2) whether 15 the project was designed to open new areas to development or improve service to an area 16 already served with transport. The development of three new light rail transit (LRT) lines in 17 Madrid provides an excellent opportunity to assess the impact of these factors on area 18 development. 19 The objective of this paper is to describe how construction of Madrid’s LRT lines and 20 coordinated transportation-land-use planning helped influence population and land use 21 development. The rest of this section provides an introduction to Madrid population and 22 transport. Section 2 presents results of a literature review. Section 3 presents the 23 methodology used in completing the analysis. Section 4 summarizes results and Section 5 24 presents conclusions. 25 26 Population 27 Madrid is the largest city in Spain and the third largest in the European Union. The city’s 28 metropolitan population was 5.6 million in 2010 (3.3 million in the city of Madrid and 2.3 29 million in the surrounding cities. See Figure 1). Madrid’s population increased significantly 30 between 2000 and 2010. The city center population increased by 9.7%, population in the 31 city’s outer areas increased by 15.4% and population in the surrounding cities increased by 32 27.3%. [1] 33 There are several reasons why population growth has been larger in the outer areas and 34 surrounding cities. The main reason is that Madrid’s center was already very densely 35 developed and given its historic nature it was difficult to develop new buildings and 36 projects. Moreover, the population density in the city center was already much higher than in 37 the outer areas of the city and in the surrounding cities (Figure 1). Furthermore, areas 38 outside the city center had larger amounts of underdeveloped land and lower land prices. 39 Finally Madrid began to significantly improve mobility in the outer areas since the 40 beginning of the 21th century by extending its public transport network to them [2]. 41 Calvo, de Oña, Arán and Nash Page: 4 1 2 Figure 1 Region of Madrid. 3 4 Mobility 5 The number of daily trips in Madrid's metropolitan area increased by more than four million 6 between 1996 and 2004, with commuting to work being the main reason for travel, followed 7 by traveling to school/university. [3] 8 Public transport is the most widely used transport mode in the city of Madrid. In 2004, 9 the mode split was 43% public transport, 28% private vehicles and 29% pedestrian. 10 Interestingly while the amount of motorized travel has grown by approximately 4.2% per 11 year since 1996, the modal split has remained nearly the same. [4] This reflects the high 12 overall quality of Madrid’s public transport and its extensive network. 13 Considering the whole Metropolitan Madrid Area, the mode split varies by zone with 14 higher shares for public transport in the central areas and lower shares as distance to the 15 center increases. The mode share in Madrid’s center city is 70% public transport and 30% 16 private transport. In the outer areas of the city it falls to 54% public transport and 46% Calvo, de Oña, Arán and Nash Page: 5 1 private, while in the surrounding cities mode split is 34% public transport and 66% private. 2 Moreover, the largest increase in motorized travel (with an annual growth rate of 7.1%) took 3 place in the surrounding cities. [4] 4 These data show that motorized travel has increased substantially more in the 5 surrounding cities than in Madrid, and that transport demand tends towards private vehicles 6 as one moves away from the Madrid’s city center. This is because compact spaces, such as 7 central Madrid, permit implementation of denser public transport networks and lead to 8 shorter typical trip distances, thereby promoting public transport use and travel by foot. By 9 contrast, in outer areas settlement patterns are more dispersed and fragmented, the public 10 transport system is less dense and distances are greater, leading to increased use of private 11 transport. 12 Another factor driving the increase in motorized private transport is increased 13 development of new residential, recreation, shopping centers and industry on the outskirts of 14 Madrid. This decentralization encourages increased use of private transport since travel 15 covers increasingly longer distances. Interestingly even for radial trips (i.e. trips from the 16 surrounding cities to the city of Madrid – both outer and central Madrid) the share of public 17 transport use is 50%, well below the 64% share it carries in the city of Madrid proper. [2] 18 These conditions in Madrid are consistent with many growing cities and show the 19 importance of making new development more compact and continuous to improve the 20 efficiency of public transport. 21 22 Madrid Light Rail Transit Development 23 An important goal for Madrid is to increase transport system sustainability. One part of this 24 was development of the Expansion Plan Metro de Madrid 2003-2007. This plan set forth 25 improvements designed to improve regional public transport including construction of three 26 light rail transit (LRT) lines designed to help address the large increase in population and car 27 use outside central Madrid (both intra-zonal and radial trips) outlined in the previous section. 28 Madrid had an extensive tramway system until the end of the 1960s, when it began 29 replacing trams mainly with buses. The last tram line closed in 1972. Only 13 years later the 30 city decided to build new tram lines although the definite plan would not come until 2003. 31 [2] 32 LRT was chosen because it provides high quality service but with lower capacity and 33 cost than heavy rail. LRT was appropriate for these areas given their lower population 34 density and level of urban development than central Madrid. Furthermore, the LRT lines 35 were designed to serve as compliments to the existing metro and regional rail lines. The 36 three lines (ML-1, ML-2 and ML3) started service in 2007 and are illustrated in Figure 2. 37 Figure 2 shows (without scale) the metro (in grey) and LRT (in color) lines in the Madrid 38 Region. 39 Madrid’s LRT lines operate between 6:00 – 1:00 on weekdays. Frequency varies 40 between 5 minutes during peak periods and 20 minutes off peak. Service is reduced slightly 41 on weekends and holidays. In 2009 annual ridership on ML1 was 4.9 million passengers, on 42 ML2 was 3.7 million and on ML3 was 3.7 million.