The safety and accident impacts, as well as the economic effects, of the construction of a bypass road using a case study in Israel are analysed. The town selected for focus is called Majd Al-Krum, a predominantly Arab town located in northern Israel. This town was selected for several reasons.First, the principal reason for constructing the bypass road was to remove the traffic from passing through the town in order to cut down the number of road accidents and improve safety. Second, during the period in question, Regional Road 85, the main artery in that area, which passes through the municipal boundaries of that town, was rerouted twice, in the years 1952 and 1996, with its position changed each time. These circumstances, along with the long time frame (about 60 years), make it a unique subject foranalysis in a before/after framework. The specific variables to be analyzed in this paper are the incidence and severity of traffic accidents, changes in property values over time, and changes in land use including the spatial distribution of residential housing and business activities of various types. The findings of the analysis are that the two alterations in therouting of the road significantly affected the town in all areas examined: the number and severity of accidents, their spatial distribution within the town boundaries, land prices in different neighborhoods within the town, spatial distribution of residential housing and business activities, and land uses (including agriculture). Different sub-areas within the town were affected by the bypass road differently and in some cases in contradictory directions (e.g. road accidents and land prices). This implies that the equity/distributional effects of the bypass road need to be taken into consideration, in addition to efficiency considerations. It appears that the distributional effects are related to a number of factors, including the specific location of the road in relationship to the town space, its distance from the town center, local zoning plans and rules, planning policy,the socio-economic condition of the local residents, the traffic volumes and the local population growth rate. A notable finding is the positive effect upon the town from the two bypass construction projects on the development of local businesses and on the commercial activities alongside the previous traffic artery. However, traffic accidents within the town increased following the construction of the roads, possibly due to the increase in the standard of living and economic development. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135582.
Abstract