Most spatial related design disciplines act facet oriented. A sustainable, energy friendly and traffic safe spatial development requires an early participation of all involved. Mono scale design tends to reduce high level sustainable results. Also, a low integration level between urban/spatial design and traffic engineering/transportation planning deteriorates a potential sustainable planning process. The Dutch developed VPL (Local Traffic Performance) includes a design upturn. This order gives design priority to places and networks essentially for sustainability. In spite of this order, planners keep vagueness about which discipline should direct which period of the design process. The importance to design 'through the design levels' showed up during a VPL test run to increase the sustainability of an imaginary new town. VPL applied to the local (R=1 km) design scale reduced car based energy consumption. Reconsidering the design process at the next (R=3 km) design scale, showed how to increase this reduction by rerouting the planned light rail. Including the next design level in the design, guarantees a more comprehensive planning, based on the interaction between the density, the programme of urban activities and the relation to light rail. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E206647.
Abstract