Interactions Between Transportation Capacity, Economic Systems, and Land Use

Book excerpt: "Strengthening the economic vitality of a region (jobs and income) is one of the primary reasons for investing in highway capacity. Elements of improving economic vitality include better access to markets and labor force, reduced cost of delay, reduced congestion, improved safety, reduced pollution, and a better quality of life. However, the ways in which new and improved highway capacity influences economic vitality are complex and often indirect. This project had three objectives: (1) to provide a resource to help determine the net changes in the economic systems of an area impacted by a transportation capacity investment; (2) to provide data and results from enough structured cases that project planners in the future can use the cases to demonstrate by analogy the likely impacts of a proposed project or group of projects (plan); and (3) to demonstrate how this fits into collaborative decision making for capacity expansion."--proj. desc. This project produced 100 case studies of already-built highway capacity projects and their economic development impacts. To accomplish this, the study team compiled pre/post economic and land development data and conducted local interviews, in order to portray the actual, observed economic development impacts of those projects. The results were put into a database and classified by type of project and local setting. An accompanying web tool, called T-PICS (Transportation Project Impact Case Studies), was developed to provide access to the case study information so it can be used to portray the range of economic development impacts occurring as a result of different types of projects in different settings.