The Cervero study you cited:
http://www.nctr.usf.edu/jpt/pdf/JPT11-3Cervero.pdf
http://www.cityofsancarlos.org/civic...sp?BlobID=4453
...seems to run counter to your assertion of the brilliant and infallible NIMBY prophecy of inevitable congestion resulting from TOD. It doesn't 100% settle the issue, but pretty clearly higher density housing near transit facilities generates fewer vehicle trips per unit than lower density housing away from transit facility. See his chart on page 14.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
For all our wishful thinking, increased density does lead to increased congestion, because in an affluent free society transit only captures journey-to-work and a few other easily made trips. Those are a relatively modest proportion of all trips.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Berwyn
While I'm not prepared to go search for a study linking TODs to reduced automobile trips, I have a really hard time believing that a residential development next to the El station would have the same transit ridership as single family homes in Palatine.
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You're generally correct in your skepticism, but it's more of a correlation effect than a causation effect, I think.
Of course, there is a difference in trip generation
rates, and
total trips. The correlation between trip generation and density is not (negative) one-to-one, so with dense housing there will be more trips than suburbia, but fewer trips per capita. Again, we get back to whether we should give a rat's behind that for 10 minutes a day some poor old lady might have to wait an entire light cycle (or 2! the horror!) to clear an intersection, or whether we should indeed give it the weight of a violation of constitutional rights, as seems to be the trend throughout most of the country. MrD is partially right, but I think being misleading: very dense housing can cause "congestion" but there's a big difference between the congestion caused by 4-flats and that caused by highrises, say. And around many rail stations in Chicago, there's no hope of anything other than single family homes or industrial/commercial uses.
All this further ignores that residential land uses really don't generate many car trips relatively speaking (except for very short time periods each day), and their trip generation rates certainly pale in comparison of the trip generation rates of retail and most other commercial uses. Remember all that smog-belching gridlock in Central Station and the Gold Coast (north of Division)? Me neither.