Using traffic impact fees to fund alternative transportation projects and impact modal choice in urban areas.

摘要

The purpose of this research was to determine if focusing traffic impact fees on alternative mode capital improvement projects would this result in the enhancement of the transit, bicycle and pedestrian systems in an urban area. Alternative mode transportation projects are defined as improvements to the transit, pedestrian and bicycle facilities in a transportation network.;Based upon a review of the literature, there have been relatively few attempts to use traffic impacts fees to fund alternative transportation mode projects. Traffic impact fees have traditionally been used to fund capacity adding transportation projects to mitigate the impact of growth.;The research involved development of a limited contact base of government agencies that have used impact fees to fund alternative transportation projects. This contact base and interviews with experts in this field, gave a perspective of the limited use of these fees currently.;A national survey of transportation planners and engineers, who work with government agencies and administer traffic impact fees, was also conducted. One purpose of this survey was to further determine if impact fees are used to fund alternative mode projects and how they are implemented. This survey identified alternative mode enhancements, such as pedestrian and transit facilities that are funded by impact fees and the methods of project selection and measuring effectiveness.;A transportation planning model developed for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was used to test the effectiveness of alternative mode projects enhancements in an urban transportation network. The model evaluated a significant long-range program of transportation alternative mode enhancements. Measures of effectiveness that were outputs of the model (e.g., average travel speeds, congested links and number of transit trips), were compared in the future no-build and build conditions to determine the impacts on the transportation network.;The model results revealed some positive and negative impacts on future travel conditions due to implementation of these alternative mode projects. The results included a positive impact on the roadway system performance by projecting a 7% reduction in total distance traveled in the roadway network. A negative impact, which was an increase in average travel distance, was also a result.;Potential revenues from the impact fee were estimated based upon the long-range projected growth in the City of Pittsburgh. The projected revenues were compared to the cost of the alternative mode projects to determine the financial feasibility of using impact fees for this purpose.;The results of this work revealed a limited positive impact in overall congestion measures in the City of Pittsburgh, maintenance of expected travel characteristics and a minimum revenue realization compared to transportation project costs. However, employing impact fees as a revenue source for alternative mode enhancements is worth exploring further. One consideration for further research would be concentrating their use in a specific urban neighborhood or corridor which may result in more focused results relative to convincing travelers to shift modes or generally enhancing the transportation travel characteristics of an urban area.