Travel-efficient urban form: A nationwide study of small metropolitan areas

The debate on the desirability of metropolitan compactness as a policy goal has many dimensions. One of the most significant dimensions is that of the impact of urban form on travel behavior, which directly relates to tailpipe pollution and travel-energy consumption. With this in mind, this dissertation explores several dimensions of metropolitan form as contributory factors to the variability in individual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the US metropolitan areas.; Two themes are investigated. First, variations observed in individual VMT are associated with the form of the metropolitan region in which the traveler is located. Second, the influence of monocentric, polycentric and decentralized sprawling forms on VMT are evaluated within size class of metropolitan areas. Population, density, spatial Gini coefficient and Moran's I are used to quantitatively characterize metropolitan form. The research analyzes some 9,000 persons from 214 metropolitan areas with a population of less than three million. The data sources include the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NTPS) and the 1990 Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP). To deal with the nested data at four different levels (i.e., person, household, neighborhood and metropolis) multilevel analysis is applied.; The results indicate that metropolitan form contributes overall only a small amount in predicting individual VMT; however, metropolitan spatial structure is one of the most significant variables for metropolitan areas of some but not all population sizes. In addition, development characterized by a relatively undifferentiated pattern of decentralization, as opposed to a more monocentric or polycentric patterns, increase individual VMT for the metropolitan areas of certain population size.; The VMT-reduction effect of metropolitan form is limited and may only materialize in the long run. However, VMT reduction is only one of many goals in landuse policies, including more housing choices and higher accessibility; hence, it may not be considered as a precondition for implementing a land use policy. The deregulation of maximum density policy regarded as a primary cause of urban sprawl, however, may provide more housing choices and high accessibility on the one hand, and bring about VMT reduction on the other.