Newest Resources

Transportation Planning Distortions and Reforms: Guidance for Reducing Automobile Dependency and Sprawl
Automobile dependency and sprawl create communities where it is easy to drive but difficult to get around by other modes. This is unfair to non-drivers and increases many costs. This report investigates the roots of these problems: planning distortions that favor driving over other modes and dispersion over compact development. This study identifies common planning practices that violate these principles, evaluates their impacts, and recommends reforms for efficiency and equity. It indicates that given better options and incentives travellers would drive less, rely more on non-auto modes, save money, and be better off overall as a result.

Completing Sidewalk Networks: Benefits and Costs
This study examines the benefits and costs of completing urban sidewalk networks. Most communities have incomplete networks. This is unfair to people who want to walk, and increases various costs by suppressing non-auto travel and increasing motor vehicle traffic. Typical North American communities currently spend $30 to $60 annually per capita on sidewalks, and would need to double or triple these levels to complete their networks. This is a large increase compared with current pedestrian spending but small compared with what governments and businesses spend on roads and parking facilities, and what motorists spend on their vehicles. Sidewalk funding increases are justified to satisfy ethical and legal requirements, and to achieve various economic, social and environmental goals.

Are Vehicle Travel Reduction Targets Justified? Why and How to Reduce Excessive Automobile Travel
This study reflects the recognition that too much of a good thing is not good. To be efficient and equitable, planning should strive to optimize vehicle travel: not too little and not too much. Planning reforms are justified to create more diverse and efficient transportation systems where people can meet their needs with less driving. To guide these reforms, some jurisdictions establish vehicle travel reduction targets. These help align individual planning decisions with strategic objectives. This report investigates why and how to implement such targets.

Cool Walkability Planning
This report investigates why and how to improve urban walkability in hot climate cities. Shadeways (covered sidewalks) and pedways (enclosed, climate controlled walkways) can can significantly improve pedestrian thermal comfort. Although these are more costly than basic sidewalks, they can greatly increase walkability and are far cheaper than motor vehicle costs. Analysis in this report indicates that pedway and shadeway networks can often repay their costs through economic savings and increased property values. The Cool Walkshed Index can help plan these facilities.

TDM Success Stories: Examples of Effective Transportation Demand Management Policies and Programs, and Keys to Their Success
Transportation Demand Management (TDM) refers to policies and programs that increase transportation system efficiency. Some people are skeptical; they claim that TDM is difficult and costly. This report describes examples of successful TDM programs, discusses how to evaluate their full benefits, and identifies keys to their success. These examples indicate that well-designed TDM policies and programs can provide many benefits to travellers and communities. When all impacts are considered, TDM is often the most cost-effective transportation improvement strategy.

Provincial Policies for Achieving Transportation Emission Reduction Targets
British Columbia has ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while also increasing affordability, social equity, public health and safety, and economic development. However, the province is not currently on track to achieve these goals. This report identifies provincial policies that can achieve these goals in ways that are cost effective and significantly benefit most residents.

Comprehensive Transportation Emission Reduction Planning. Guidelines for Evaluating Transportation Emission Reduction Strategies
Many jurisdictions have ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and are developing plans to achieve them. This study identifies various factors that should be considered when evaluating and prioritizing emission reduction strategies, and evaluates whether typical plans consider them. Emission reduction evaluation should include embodied emissions, rebound effects, implementation costs and subsidies, leverage effects, indirect costs and co-benefits, cost efficiency, and latent demand for non-auto travel. This review finds that most plans overlook or undervalue many of these factors in ways that tend to exaggerate clean vehicle benefits, and undervalue vehicle travel reduction strategies. This study concludes that efficient, equitable transportation emission reduction plans should rely at least as much on vehicle travel reductions as on clean vehicles.

Racism and Colonialism in Geography Textbooks, 1820s to 1950s
Geography textbooks introduce children to foreign lands and people, and so leave a durable legacy on our understanding of the world. This study analyzes descriptions of race and culture from typical school geography textbooks published between 1826 and 1955. It reprints selected texts and images, analyzes how their narratives changed over time, and discusses their impacts. Early books categorized race and culture using methods modelled after biological taxonomies, giving them a veneer of scientific objectivity. They identified various races which were categorized according to various "stages of society." They were overtly racist -- they claimed that some races and cultures are superior to others -- and colonialist -- they claimed that European imperialism was benevolent and beneficial overall. These racist and colonialist narratives declined over time and later books promoted racial inclusivity and multiculturalism.

Evaluating Active and Micro Mode Emission Reduction Potentials
This study examines the potential roles that active modes (walking, bicycling and variants such as wheelchairs, strollers, handcarts) and micro modes (e-bikes and e-scooters) can play in reducing climate emissions. Conventional planning considers these modes unimportant and ineffective at reducing emissions, but more comprehensive analysis tends to justify far more investment in them. This analysis indicates that cost-effective improvements could double or triple active mode travel and provide significant emission reductions. A review of recent emission reduction plans indicates that most undervalue active and micro modes.