Annotated Bibliography - SSTI

Forecasting Indirect Land Use Effects of Transportation Projects,
Title
NCHRP Project 25‐25, Task 22
Authors Uri Avins, Robert Cervero, Terry Moore, Christopher Dorney,
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and
Sponsor
the Transportation Research Board
Date 2007
Pages 128
Category Economic Development, Modes: Highway
Note
Online http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=1294
Summary This report was prepared at the request of AASHTO to provide states with specific
guidance on how to forecast indirect land use effects of transportation projects after
a number of states had environmental impact statements challenged for alleged
inadequate treatment of the issue. The report serves as a detailed guidebook for
projecting such effects, which AASHTO determined was needed despite numerous
guidance documents by states and research organizations. The authors found that
the practice of predicting these effects was “a largely ad‐hoc field lacking focused
guidance and research‐based understanding of land use response to transportation
improvements”. Moreover where guidance was available, practitioners interviewed
acknowledged skipping steps or substituting other methods.
The authors point out that failure to account for this induced demand is likely to
overstate travel time savings attributed to a project, which is an important part of
the transportation and economic benefits. They suggest this situation adds to public
skepticism about the project and its benefits and is the impetus for legal challenges.
The authors also indicate skepticism about the value of “packaged models” in use by
states and MPOs in considering induced travel demand and the related land use
effects.
The guidebook provides factors to consider in determining if indirect or induced land
use effects may be promoted by the subject project. Detailed guidance is provided
on how to conduct the analysis when that is determined necessary through
descriptions of six types of analysis: planners’ judgment; collaborative judgment;
elasticities and the potential for induced traffic; allocation models that allow land
use and population forecasts to be allocated to smaller geographies; four‐step Travel
Demand models with heuristic land use allocations; and Integrated Land Use and
Transportation models. Of these the first three are considered foundational and are
used in combination with one of the latter three for more rigor when needed due to
the project’s complexity or size.
Annotated Bibliography Page 2