The Pennsylvania State University
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The Effet of Land Use Planning on University Transportation Systems (Full Text)
Authors: Elizabeth Isler and Dr. Lester A. HoelAbstract
The unique situation of university campuses makes them excellent environments in which to examine the transportation-land use relationship: specifically, how to optimally occupy and manage space while maintaining maximum mobility and accessibility. The literature suggests that data and a thorough discussion of campus land use and transportation are lacking; moreover, as available land on campus disappears planners are urgently in need of effective approaches to managing transportation and land use.This report analyzes the results of a survey of 34 four-year residential and commuter universities with enrollments of more than 15,000 located in small cities of populations between 50,000 and 249,999. The report includes in-depth case studies of three of the campuses (the University of California-Santa Barbara, the University of Oklahoma-Norman, and Harvard University) in an effort to illustrate real-world situations encountered by campus transportation and land use planners, such as town-gown coordination, adherence to local zoning ordinances, and the implementation of effective alternative transportation programs.
The trends identified by the survey results show that most development is on previously used land- often surface parking lots- in the central campus, thereby suggesting that campuses generally have little room for new development and that most changes will be in the form of redevelopment (and lost parking). Consequently, campus planners often find themselves in the difficult position of deciding between the construction of expensive parking structures or searching for ways (which can be politically unpopular) to substantially reduce parking demand. Many respondents commented on the potential of park & ride programs, the expansion of transportation alternative programs, and in particular, unlimited access transit pass programs to address this decrease in parking supply. However, such programs are only successful at reducing parking demand when they are implemented with policies (often controversial) that reduce the supply of inexpensive and convenient parking.
The survey results further show that the availability of land in the campus interior is a greater determinant of the type of parking than the relative costs of lots versus structures, as campuses more frequently build structures on the periphery than lots in the interior. This implies that land availability is also a greater determinant than convenience or accessibility. Most schools appear to be striving to maintain a pedestrian-oriented campus, if only in the campus core. Moreover, mode split data analyzed in the report suggests that the area in which a school is located (i.e., urban, suburban) is a greater determinant of its campus transportation traits than the campus being residential or commuter.