Browsing by Author "Tomassen, Mike Willibrordus Laurentius"

Throughout history, the growth of cities has been considered a great source of prosperity. However, in recent years negative environmental impacts have led to a growing concern about the consequences of the sometimes seemingly unlimited urban growth. One of the key topics when speaking about these negative environmental impacts is mobility. With the increasing importance of mobility in the modern urbanized world, improving the urban built environment to stimulate the use of sustainable modes of transport is one of the major challenges for today’s land use and transport planners. The research in this thesis builds upon the reciprocal interaction between the (design of the) built environment and travel behavior. Use is made of the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD), a well-established planning approach originating from the US, aiming at achieving a shift in modal share towards sustainable forms of transport, while simultaneously creating a more livable environment with high standards for urban space. Much of the available research on TOD is, however, mainly based on the policy scale and the regional planning scale, while attention to the detailed design level has been minimal. Furthermore, much of the research has focused on the North-American context. Consequently, practical design guidelines for TOD in the European and Finnish context are still lacking. This thesis aims at bridging the gap between academic research on the topic of built environment and travel behavior, and the professional practice of land use planning. This is done, first of all, by examining the relation between land use, design, and sustainable modes of mobility in academic research, and second, by producing spatial design guidelines for TOD in the Finnish context. The main method used to bridge the gap between research and design is the creation of guidelines, a research method for environmental design disciplines defined by Prominski. The creation of the guidelines has been done in two ways. First, a study of three best-practice examples of TOD (Rieselfeld, Vauban, and Hammarby Sjöstad) has been done, from which a number of guidelines have been extracted. Second, the applicability of these guidelines for the Finnish context has been examined through several test designs for the Malmin kenttä district, a new urban development area in Helsinki. Simultaneously, new guidelines have been developed throughout the process. The creation of the toolbox of TOD guidelines for spatial development in the Finnish context forms an important first step in translating the available academic knowledge into usable practical tools for Finnish planners. Although a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the related theoretical models is still required to achieve overarching goals, such as a modal shift, the toolbox provides a set of practical guidelines that planners can directly apply to their work. Furthermore, the guidelines may, in combination with the test designs, spark a larger discussion on the role of TOD in Finnish planning and the importance of a good integration of land use and transport planning.