The purposes of this part of the study were to illustrate advanced transportation services and corresponding land usage by formulating a hypothetical future urban area; to describe the public transportation flows in this hypothetical setting; and to evaluate the potential impacts of such transportation concepts on the physical, economic, and social character of urban areas. A metropolitan area of roughly 4 million inhabitants has been hypothesized for the year 2000, such as might develop from a moderately large urban area currently on the scale of minneapolis--st.paul or pittsburgh. The area takes advantage of postulated advances in transportation technology and comprehensive planning, combined with a large measure of freedom from present day constraints in local government, property taxation, condemnation rights, and social and physical programs. The hypothesized urban form combines the concept of multiple centers within a central urban concentration with the concept of geographically distinct new town development arranged along radials. Half of the area's population is assumed to live in the central concentration identified as the metropolitan city. Geographically distinct new towns house the other half of the area's population. Analysis of the relationships between the specified urban area demography, transit network characteristics, and design solutions demonstrated that much of the land within walking distance of transit stations can be developed more intensively than is possible with road networks; the success of the idea of focusing development at discrete centers depends greatly on links to and from predominantly low-density development; and the choice of elevated versus subgrade rights-of-way should be influenced by the nature and density of the particular environment. /UMTA/.
Abstract