Transport and land use planning in the new towns [Chapter 3 keynote article]

Potter, Stephen (1997). Transport and land use planning in the new towns [Chapter 3 keynote article]. In The New Towns Record, (CD ROM) Commission for the New Towns, London.

Abstract

The relationship between transport and urban design was a subject that attracted considerable attention in the planning of Britain’s new towns. But with the winding down of the new town programme, this experience of integrating land use and transport planning came to be seen of little more than historical interest. However, in the recent years, transport issues have developed in significantly new way such that the land use/transport planning experience of the new towns is now seen of increasing relevance to contemporary transport planning issues.
This keynote paper for Chapter 3 of the English New Towns CD Rom explores the contrasting land use/transport planning structures of the English new towns and concludes that the new town experience in land use/transport design contains valuable lessons for the use of planning measures to reduce car dependence. The new town experience suggests that more than land use planning measures alone are needed to reduce traffic; the urban structures of places like Redditch and Runcorn have the potential to have a very environmentally-benign transport system but at the moment only a small part of this potential is being realised. Land use planning needs to be combined with other carefully-developed measures (such as price incentives, infrastructure investment and development of new technologies) to be fully effective. But without an urban structure conducive to public transport operations and access by non-motorised modes, trying to manage travel demands to within socially, economic and environmental limits could well prove an impossible task.

Plain Language Summary

The relationship between transport and urban design was a subject that attracted considerable attention in the planning of Britain’s new towns. But with the winding down of the new town programme, this experience of integrating land use and transport planning came to be seen of little more than historical interest. However, in the recent years, transport issues have developed in significantly new way such that the land use/transport planning experience of the new towns is now seen of increasing relevance to contemporary transport planning issues.
This keynote paper for Chapter 3 of the English New Towns CD Rom explores the contrasting land use/transport planning structures of the English new towns and concludes that the new town experience in land use/transport design contains valuable lessons for the use of planning measures to reduce car dependence. The new town experience suggests that more than land use planning measures alone are needed to reduce traffic; the urban structures of places like Redditch and Runcorn have the potential to have a very environmentally-benign transport system but at the moment only a small part of this potential is being realised. Land use planning needs to be combined with other carefully-developed measures (such as price incentives, infrastructure investment and development of new technologies) to be fully effective. But without an urban structure conducive to public transport operations and access by non-motorised modes, trying to manage travel demands to within socially, economic and environmental limits could well prove an impossible task.

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