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Urban Transportation Planning and Policy

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Examines transportation policymaking and planning; its relationship to social and environmental justice; and the influences of politics, governance structures, and human and institutional behavior. Explores the pathway to infrastructure, how attitudes are influenced, and how change happens. Examines the tensions and potential synergies among traditional transportation policy values of individual mobility, system efficiency, and "sustainability." Explores the roles of the government; analysis of current trends; transport sector decarbonization; land use, placemaking, and sustainable mobility networks; the role of "mobility as a service;" and the implications of disruptive technology on personal mobility. Assesses traditional planning methods with a critical eye, and through that process considers how to approach transportation planning in a way that responds to contemporary needs and values, with an emphasis on transport justice.

Fall 2016 · Urban Transportation Planning

Topics

  • Course Overview and Introduction
  • Urban Transportation History and Institutions
  • Boston’s Highway Revolt: Anatomy of a Pattern Break?
  • Transportation Finance and Legislation: Economic Development and Externalities
  • The Battle for the Space Between Buildings: Street Design and the Politics of Urban Mobility
  • Transportation Planning Methods and Measures: The 4-Step Model (and Other Traffic Models)
  • Congestion and Solutions
  • Project Evaluation and Environmental Impacts of Transportation
  • The Other Battle for the Space Between Buildings: Parking
  • Transportation Planning Methods and Measures: Access to Destinations
  • Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Transportation

Readings

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None G (Fall) 3-0-9 units

Sources