Incorporating Environmental Sustainability into Transit-Oriented Development on Detroit Light Rail Transit System

摘要

The term sustainability is being used increasingly in policy debates about future transportation, and evokes strong reactions among policy-makers, users, and experts. In a broad sense, sustainability implies the capacity to endure over an extended period, and has become a wide ranging concept applied to nearly every facet of life. Sustainable development implies conscientious use of resources to meet human needs, present and future, while ensuring the preservation of the natural environment. The topic of discussion in this report is the degree to which sustainability can be incorporated into certain types of development, namely transit-oriented development (TOD) at, or in proximity to, light-rail transit (LRT) stations. A set of goals, primarily from the existing literature for sustainable transportation is presented, and an effort is made by the project team to demonstrate how a majority of these goals can be achieved by proper planning of LRT systems. The project team contends that TOD can be used as a vehicle to attain sustainable LRT stations. When factors such as air quality and the depletion of natural resources are considered, LRT is thought to be superior to standard bus or bus-rapid transit (BRT) services. However, LRT systems are considered more capitally-intensive than BRT systems, a factor that would require a minimum population threshold value. The project team contends that environmental considerations should receive greater priority in the decisionmaking process for transportation projects. While the concept of environmental impact is based upon the minimization of adverse impacts, a stronger emphasis on sustainability can be realized by maximizing environmental performance.