THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANDUSE AND TRANSPORTATION

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.
Summary of comparison of thirteen land use models
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.