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WEEK
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TOPICS
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1
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Course Overview and Introduction
- Overview of the course
- The multi-step approach to transportation planning
- Current issues and trends in urban transportation
- Pattern breaks
- The transportation planning method
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2
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Urban Transportation History and Institutions
- Thumbnail history of Boston
- Transportation and land use: chicken and egg
- Job densities and transit
- Introduction of first assignment
No recitation
Assignment 0 “Introduce Yourself” due
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3
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No Class: MIT Holiday
No recitation
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4
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Boston’s Highway Revolt: Anatomy of a Pattern Break?
- Highway revolt and resurgence of transit in Boston
- Was the revolt a rebellion or a revolution?
- Cambridge today
- Guest Lecture: Dominick Tribone, “Counting Today: Automatically Collected Data Systems”
No recitation; Everett/Sullivan/Charlestown walking tour
Assignment 1 due
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5
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Transportation Finance and Legislation: Economic Development and Externalities
- Transportation and federal legislation
- Economic Development: job generation, urban agglomeration, industrial policy
- External and social costs
- Taxes for transporation
- Gentrification
- Employment policies, housing finance, tax code
- Spending other people’s money: what are the rules? Financial evaluation and constraints
- Role of government, annual appropriations, capital investment
- The “peanut butter principle”, i.e. pork barrel
Recitation: Assignment 1 presentations (with special guest Joe Barr, Director of Traffic, Parking and Transportation for the City of Cambridge)
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6
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The Battle for the Space Between Buildings: Street Design and the Politics of Urban Mobility
- Guest Lecturer Anson Stewart: Spatial limits and capacity
- Guest Lecture Jeff Rosenblum: Traffic calming, complete streets, and the politics of street design
No recitation
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7
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Transportation Planning Methods and Measures: The 4-Step Model (and Other Traffic Models)
- Guest Lecturer Mikel Murga
No recitation
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8
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Congestion and Solutions
- Congestion and solutions
- Capacity and accessibility
Recitation: Presentation and discussion of Assignment 2
Assignment 2 due
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9
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Project Evaluation and Environmental Impacts of Transportation
Guest Lecturers Laurie Hussey and Tom Rossie of Cambridge Systematics
- FTA’s new starts, evaluation criteria
- Project selection and prioritization
- Institutional role in project programming, MPOs and modal agencies
- MPOs and the institutional role in programming
- Highway expansion
- National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
- Transportation and air quality
- Large land use developments and MEPA
No recitation
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10
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No class
Recitation: Watch Great Projects: The Big Dig from PBS
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11
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The Other Battle for the Space Between Buildings: Parking
- Congestion: why it happens, and what we can do about it
- Pricing road space: congestion charging
- Congestion as an argument for transit
- The non-linearity of congestions and interpreting congestion numbers
- World tour of parking management practices and policies
- Transit and parking policy
- Legacies and innovations in urban transportation
No recitation
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12
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No class
No recitation
Assignment 3 due
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13
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Transportation Planning Methods and Measures: Access to Destinations
- Accessibility measures
- Gentrification and accessibility
Recitation: Presentation and discussion of Assignment 3
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14
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Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Transportation
- Transportation and global warming: might climate change adaptation be the next pattern break?
- Changing conditions: austerity measures, devolution of responsibilities from the federal government to the states, demographic changes, and energy shifts
- More transit supply, more transit mode share, more density near stations
- Course evaluations, parting thoughts and wrap-up
Recitation: Feedback on course
Assignment 4 due
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