Transportation and land use patterns are highly interdependent. Automobile oriented transport requires more land for roads and parking than most other form of travel, and encourages low-density urban expansion ("sprawl") which increases per capita land development. These impacts impose a variety of costs, including increased economic costs to construct roadway facilities, increased land requirements for roads, increased public services used by drivers, environmental and aesthetic costs from reduced greenspace, and higher per capita municipal and utility costs to serve lower density development. Sprawl increase a number of economic and environmental costs, and is highly automobile dependent, increasing future transportation costs. These costs are described in detail in this paper. While lower density land development provides benefits to users (internal benefits), many of these costs are borne by society as a whole (external). (A) For related work see IRRD 875423.
Abstract