Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas
In this paper, we examine transportation sustainability in American metropolitan areas using transportation-related CO₂ emissions, public transit accessibility, and commuting times as indicators. Though variations in these indicators may stem from historic contexts, policies, institutional arrangeme...
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| Format: | Article |
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SAGE Publications
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128823 |
| _version_ | 1811096913015996416 |
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| author | Sevtuk, Andres Amindarbari, Reza |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning Sevtuk, Andres Amindarbari, Reza |
| author_sort | Sevtuk, Andres |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In this paper, we examine transportation sustainability in American metropolitan areas using transportation-related CO₂ emissions, public transit accessibility, and commuting times as indicators. Though variations in these indicators may stem from historic contexts, policies, institutional arrangements, social and cultural origins, the spatial structure of metropolitan areas—in particular their formal characteristics—may also be a contributing factor. To test this relationship, we identify metropolitan form metrics from prior literature that are expected to impact transportation outcomes, and choose five metrics to which we introduce significant improvements. We apply the metrics to all 166 Combined Statistical Areas in the US, using an open-source GIS toolbox released along with the paper. Our findings demonstrate that form-based metrics provide a better explanation to CO₂ emissions, public transit accessibility, and commuting times in US metro areas than the simpler population size or density metrics typically used in practice. We also show that counter to prior literature on urban scaling laws and economies of scale, which have argued that larger cities and metro areas are more sustainable per capita, transport-related CO₂ emissions and transit accessibility are actually less favorable in larger CSAs when controlling for formal characteristics of metropolitan areas. Instead of scale, compactness has the highest elasticity with respect to transportation sustainability of metro areas. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:51:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/128823 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:51:21Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1288232022-10-03T08:44:16Z Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas Sevtuk, Andres Amindarbari, Reza Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning In this paper, we examine transportation sustainability in American metropolitan areas using transportation-related CO₂ emissions, public transit accessibility, and commuting times as indicators. Though variations in these indicators may stem from historic contexts, policies, institutional arrangements, social and cultural origins, the spatial structure of metropolitan areas—in particular their formal characteristics—may also be a contributing factor. To test this relationship, we identify metropolitan form metrics from prior literature that are expected to impact transportation outcomes, and choose five metrics to which we introduce significant improvements. We apply the metrics to all 166 Combined Statistical Areas in the US, using an open-source GIS toolbox released along with the paper. Our findings demonstrate that form-based metrics provide a better explanation to CO₂ emissions, public transit accessibility, and commuting times in US metro areas than the simpler population size or density metrics typically used in practice. We also show that counter to prior literature on urban scaling laws and economies of scale, which have argued that larger cities and metro areas are more sustainable per capita, transport-related CO₂ emissions and transit accessibility are actually less favorable in larger CSAs when controlling for formal characteristics of metropolitan areas. Instead of scale, compactness has the highest elasticity with respect to transportation sustainability of metro areas. 2020-12-11T21:46:16Z 2020-12-11T21:46:16Z 2020-12 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2399-8083 2399-8091 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128823 Sevtuk, Andres and Reza Amindarbari. "Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas." Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science (December 2020): dx.doi.org/10.1177/2399808320971310 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2399808320971310 Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf SAGE Publications Prof. Sevtsuk |
| spellingShingle | Sevtuk, Andres Amindarbari, Reza Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas |
| title | Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas |
| title_full | Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas |
| title_fullStr | Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas |
| title_full_unstemmed | Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas |
| title_short | Does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability? Evidence from US metropolitan areas |
| title_sort | does metropolitan form affect transportation sustainability evidence from us metropolitan areas |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128823 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sevtukandres doesmetropolitanformaffecttransportationsustainabilityevidencefromusmetropolitanareas AT amindarbarireza doesmetropolitanformaffecttransportationsustainabilityevidencefromusmetropolitanareas |