INTRODUCTION
There is no doubt that transportation
is a form of land usage, with this there is a vibrant relationship between the
two phenomena. Land use on its own is a wide phenomenon if to be emphasised on
to depth, transportation is as well a broad phenomenon if need be to lay
emphasis on it.
Nevertheless land use in a simple
simplification is the appropriate classified usage of available open space such
that it meets the maximum wants of people either economically, socially and in
terms of aesthetics. Transportation on
the other hand is the movement of people, goods and services from one region to
another so as to meet human socio economic means.
Transportation systems
and land use patterns influence each other. Roads, transit, and other
transportation elements shape land development, while the distribution and
types of land uses affect travel patterns and transportation facilities. A
dispersed pattern of low-density development relies almost exclusively on cars
as the primary mode for transportation. Alternatively, denser urban centres can
combine different land uses in closer proximity, encouraging:
a.
Walking
b.
Biking
c.
Transit
d.
Other
forms of travel
Like many planning
issues, the link between land use and transportation is extremely complex. Many
options have been proposed for strengthening the transportation and land use
connection. Incorporating elements of Smart Growth offer a choice of transportation
options.
With the little introduction the
following explanation explains factors that can influence transportation in
relationship to land use. Traffic
volumes and choices of mode of travel are influenced by the
location, density,
and mixture of
land uses. Land use planning and transportation
infrastructure need to work together. Communities
should plan for the future and be aware of how their land
use plans will affect the levels of traffic, appearance,
and points of congestion on highways. Connected
sidewalks, attractive walking environments, and pedestrian crosswalks in
compact settlements:
a.
Encourage alternative modes of transportation
b.
Decrease reliance on existing transportation
infrastructure
c.
In the long-run, can save money for your
community
d.
Give residents travel options and improve
liveability • Traffic calming devices on local streets, such as traffic circles
or speed humps
e.
The addition of on-street parking provides a
buffer between moving vehicles and pedestrians, while moderating traffic speeds
f.
Houses built closer to the sidewalk and street.
Porches instead of garages in front facilitate interaction and are pedestrian
friendly.
Furthermore, transportation investments have a
significant influence on surrounding land uses. Land use patterns also affect
the utilization of transportation facilities. These interrelated effects will
occur regardless of whether city officials consider land use in determining
their transportation investments. Governments, developers, and citizens can
work together to design integrated land use and transportation plans that will
help achieve a shared vision for the future. Integrating land use and
transportation more effectively can help shape priorities for transportation
investments and ensure that new transportation projects and land use plans
support and reinforce each other.
The above statements can
be further improved by the design of newer development patterns displays a
different street layout and land use. This alternative includes an integration
of different land uses in closer proximity by promoting higher densities with a
mix of land uses. The principles of this form of development include:
a.
The
revitalization of cities and older suburbs with new growth in already developed
areas
b.
The protection of farms, open spaces, and
sensitive environments from new development
c.
The
reduced cost of building and maintaining public infrastructure and services.
Compact communities can be less costly to local governments, allowing
communities to spend money on other services.
USING THE THEORY MODELS
IN EXPLAINING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION
A renowned theory implying
the
idea that computer models of urban land use and transportation might contribute
to more rational urban planning was born in the 1950s and culminated in the
1960s. The ‘new tools for planning’ (Harris 1965) were thought to be a major
technological breakthrough that would revolutionize the practice of urban
policy making. However, the diffusion of urban models faltered soon after the
pioneering phase, for a variety of reasons. The most fundamental probably was
that these models were linked to the rational planning paradigm dominant in
most Western countries at that time. They were perhaps the most ambitious
expression of the desire to 'understand' as thoroughly as possible the
intricate mechanisms of urban development, and by virtue of this understanding
to forecast and control the future of cities (Lee 1973). Since then the
attitude towards planning has departed from the ideal of synoptic rationalism
and turned to a more modest, increment list interpretation of planning; that
has at least co-determined the failure of many ambitious large-scale modelling
project. However, today the urgency of the environmental debate has renewed the
interest in integrated models of urban land use and transport. There is growing
consensus that the negative environmental impacts of transportation cannot be
reduced by transportation policies alone but that they have to be complemented
by measures to reduce the need for mobility by promoting higher-density, mixed-use
urban forms more suitable for public transport.
For the evaluation
of operational urban models, an idealized urban model will first be sketched
out as a benchmark by which the existing models can be classified and
evaluated. Eight types of major urban subsystem are distinguished. They are
ordered by the speed by which they change, from slow to fast processes:
- Very slow change:
networks, land use. Urban transportation, communications and utility networks are
the most permanent elements of the physical structure of cities. Large
infrastructure projects require a decade or more, and once in place, they are
rarely abandoned. The land use distribution is equally stable; it changes only
incrementally.
- Slow changes:
workplaces, housing. Buildings have a life-span of up to one hundred years and take
several years from planning to completion. Workplaces (non-residential
buildings) such as factories, warehouses, shopping centres or offices, theatres
or universities exist much longer than the firms or institutions that occupy
them, just as housing exists longer than the households that live in it.
- Fast change:
employment, population. Firms are established or closed down, expanded or
relocated; this creates new jobs or makes workers redundant and so affects
employment. Households are created, grow or decline and eventually are
dissolved, and in each stage in their lifecycle adjust their housing
consumption and location to their changing needs; this determines the
distribution of population.
- Immediate change:
goods transport, travel. The location of human activities in space gives rise to
a demand for spatial interaction in the form of goods transport or travel.
These interactions are the most volatile phenomena of spatial urban
development; they adjust in minutes or hours to changes in congestion or
fluctuations in demand.
There is a ninth
subsystem, the urban environment. Its temporal behaviour is more complex. The
direct impacts of human activities, such as transportation noise and air
pollution are immediate; other effects such as water or soil contamination
build up incrementally over time, and still others such as long-term climate
effects are so slow that they are hardly observable. The later figure
illustrates the main interactions of the eight subsystems and their multiple
links with the urban environment. It can be seen, for instance, that the
location of workplaces, i.e. non-residential buildings such as factories, warehouses,
office buildings and shops depends on the location of other firms and of
clients and workers, on access to goods transportation and travel by customers
and employees, and on the availability of land, utilities and housing. All
eight subsystems affect the environment by energy and space consumption, air
pollution and noise emission, whereas location choices of housing investors and
households, firms and workers are co-determined by environmental quality, or
lack of it. All nine subsystems are partly market-driven and partly subject to
policy regulation.
Thirteen Urban Models
For the comparison,
thirteen models were selected from the work at the twenty modelling centres described
above. The selection does not imply a judgment on the quality of the models,
but was based simply on the availability of information. These are the thirteen
models:
- POLIS: the
Projective Optimization Land Use Information System developed by Prastacos for the
Association of Bay Area Governments (Prastacos 1986).
- CUFM: the
California Urban Futures Model developed at the University of California at
Berkeley (Landis 1992; 1993; 1994).
- BOYCE: the
combined models of location and travel choice developed by Boyce (Boyce et al. 1983;
1985; Boyce 1986; Boyce et al. 1992).
- KIM: the
nonlinear version of the urban equilibrium model developed by Kim (1989) and
Rho and Kim (1989).
- METROSIM: the
new microeconomic land-use transportation model by Anas.
- ITLUP: the
Integrated Transportation and Land Use Package developed by Putman (1983; 1991).
- HUDS: the Harvard
Urban Development Simulation developed by Kain and Apgar (1985).
- TRANUS: the
transportation and land-use model developed by de la Barra (de la Barra et al. 1984;
de la Barra 1989).
- 5-LUT: the
'5-Stage Land-Use Transport Model' developed by Martinez for Santiago de Chile (1991;
1992a; 1992b).
- MEPLAN: the
integrated modeling package developed by Marcial Echenique & Partners (Echenique
et al. 1990; Hunt and Simmonds 1993, Echenique 1994; Williams 1994; Hunt 1994).
- LILT: the
Leeds Integrated Land-Use/Transport model developed by Mackett (1983; 1990c; 1991a;
1991b).
- IRPUD: the
model of the Dortmund region developed by Wegener (1985; 1986a; Wegener et al.
1991).
- RURBAN: the
Random-Utility URBAN model developed by Miyamoto (Miyamoto et al. 1986;
Miyamoto and Kitazume 1989). These thirteen models will be classified according
to the following criteria: comprehensiveness, overall structure, theoretical foundations,
modeling techniques, dynamics, data requirements, calibration and validation,
operationality and applicability. Table 1 summarizes the comparison for the
most important of these criteria.
Some
ancient thinkers like:
ALFRED
WEBER: He stipulated that the location as a phenomenon making it a theory is
concerned with the geographic location of economic activities; it has become an
integral part of economic geography, regional science and spatial economics
whereby three major questions are induced so as to solve location challenges
which are:
1.
Where
2.
What and
3.
Why
This
means where can a land for economic activities be located, why must the land be
located and what value or of what importance will the location benefit the economy.
Hence,
relating this to transportation since it is a land use theory same goes as:
-The
need to know the appropriate section ‘where’ transportation facilities are
needed with respect to its value to economic activities in a specific region.
-Why
is the transportation facilities needed, is it for the benefit of some selected
individuals or groups of organisation instead of the benefit of the whole all
and sundry in a particular region. E.g a typical example is a built transport
system in lagos state having a toed gate whereby an amount of money is
collected from road users passing through it and a percentage of the money goes
into some peoples pause instead of using it to maintain the facility.
-Of
what relevance is the whole transportation facility to the development of the
region either economically socially or even for future relevance.
If
the above questions can be given answers to then, the need for a well designed
transportation facilities should be in place for the development as needed.
The table below
labelled table 1 is of the latest thinkers’ theories who are hoping to create a
foundation basis which will include the thinking of land use designs with
respect to transportation the initial stage of design so as to meet the
necessary looking like perfect pattern needed because nobody is perfect.
CONCLUSION
There is no way
land use can be mentioned without including transportation as both work hand in
hand with one another traced back to the ancient times where traces of
transportation routes patterns are formed from the use of ancient transport
means like use of horses, donkeys and the likes.
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