National Center for Smart Growth Research Works

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The National Center for Smart Growth (NCSG) works to advance the notion that research, collaboration, engagement and thoughtful policy development hold the key to a smarter and more sustainable approach to urban and regional development. NCSG is based at the University of Maryland, College Park, housed under the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, with support from the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, the A. James Clark School of Engineering, the School of Public Policy, and the Office of the Provost.

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Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances in Maryland: Inappropriate Use, Inconsistent Standards, and Unintended Consequences
(2006) The National Center for Smart Growth
The purpose of this study is to examine the implementation and effects of APFOs and the relationship between APFOs and Maryland’s Smart Growth policy. Thirteen counties and 12 incorporated municipalities in Maryland have enacted ordinances designed to assure that infrastructure necessary to support proposed new development is built concurrently with, or prior to, that new development. These Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances, or APFOs as they are commonly called, are designed to assure that public schools, roads, sewers, water for fire fighting, police and rescue response times and/or other infrastructure or services are “adequate” to support proposed new development. APFOs are timing devices that can be a useful tool for managing urban growth. When properly used, they can help ensure that needed facilities and services are available for new development and can signal to planners and elected officials what types of infrastructure, in which particular growth areas, are in need of additional capital improvement spending. They are intended to provide the rationale for prioritizing infrastructure investment decisions. As of April 2005, 13 counties and 12 municipalities had implemented APFO ordinances. In terms of categories of services included in the 12 county APFOs, all cover schools and roads. While two counties limit their APFOs to those two service categories, nine others include water and sewage capacity; three include water for fire suppression in rural areas, two include police/fire/rescue services; and one includes recreation. Not only do categories of services included in the APFOs vary, but so do a) the standards used to gauge adequacy, and b) the approaches taken by the counties when a development proposal is judged as leading to service or facility inadequacy. Moreover, APFO standards in a given jurisdiction can and do change over time as local elected officials respond to the concerns of constituents, other stakeholders and changing public policy objectives. This study finds that APFOs in Maryland are often poorly linked to capital improvement plans, and moratoria can last for indefinite periods of time. Further, the consequences of APFOs in Maryland are often unintended and their effects frequently contrary to the broader land use policies of the state. In many counties that employ APFOs, they have become the dominant planning tool rather than just one of many tools a county might use to manage its growth. When roads, schools or other infrastructure are judged to be insufficient to meet the standards established within APFOs, the result is often a moratorium on building until the infrastructure is ready to come on line. Often, the only way these moratoria can only be lifted is through the payment of impact fees by developers. These fees are, in turn, passed through to new home buyers. While this practice is justified by some observers as being consistent with the “benefit standard” (i.e., those who benefit from a particular service or facility should be the ones to pay for it), it ignores the benefits that accrue to the community from new development. Another perspective is that it places a disproportionate burden for the cost of new infrastructure on new home buyers. Under the latter perspective, if new development is consistent with a jurisdiction’s comprehensive plan, then it is appropriate for the funding for needed services and services be borne by the jurisdiction as a whole. The study also finds that APFOs are applied in ways that often deflect development away from the very areas designated for growth in county comprehensive plans to rural areas never intended for growth, to neighboring counties, or even to adjacent states. An analysis of the effects of APFOs on housing in Harford, Howard, and Montgomery counties found that over a three-year period, APFOs deflected as much as 10 percent of the new home development that otherwise would have been built within the PFAs of those counties. It is likely that the cumulative effect is that the amount of housing available in those counties is reduced, housing prices are inflated, and the growth simply moves elsewhere. APFO consistency with a local comprehensive plan is possible only if adequate funding is allocated to provide necessary infrastructure in the plan’s designated areas. That, however, is often not the case. In short, APFOs appear to be fueling the same pattern of development the state’s Smart Growth policy is intended to curtail. This result appears to be at odds with both the intent underlying the enactment of local Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances and the land use goals of the state.
Assessing the impact of urban form measures in nonwork trip mode choice after controlling for demographic and level-of-service effects
(2003) Rajamani, Jayanthi; Bhat, Chandra R.; Handy, Susan; Knaap, Gerritt; Song, Yan
The relationship between travel behavior and the local built environment continues to be a contentious issue, despite several research efforts in the area. The current paper investigates the significance and explanatory power of a variety of urban form measures on nonwork activity travel mode choice. The travel data used for analysis is the 1995 Portland Metropolitan Activity Survey conducted by Portland Metro. The database on the local built environment was developed by Song (2002) and includes a more extensive set of variables than previous studies that have examined the relationship between travel behavior and the local built environment using the Portland data. A multinomial logit mode choice model results indicate that higher residential densities and mixed-uses promote walking behavior for nonwork activities.
Barriers to Development Inside Maryland's Priority Funding Areas: Perspectives of Planners, Developers, and Advocates
(2012) Dawkins, Casey; Knaap, Gerrit; Sartori, Jason
Passed in 1997, Maryland’s Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Initiative took a novel approach to growth management, utilizing the power of the purse to encourage sustainable development. The initiative seeks to discourage suburban sprawl through a targeted spending approach, while also allowing local governments to retain their land use decision-making authority. It required local governments to designate Priority Funding Areas (PFAs) where state infrastructure funding would be focused. Through this tool, the State aimed to promote development and revitalization within Maryland’s urbanized areas, while limiting the urbanization of Maryland’s rural areas and green spaces. Data from the Maryland Department of Planning, however, suggests that PFAs are having limited impacts. The percent of single-family acres developed outside of PFAs has risen steadily over time. Development densities have declined in PFAs, with the average parcel size inside PFAs increasing from 0.25 acres in 1990 to 0.28 acres in 2004. Despite their disappointing performance, PFAs are anticipated to play key roles in future policies regarding development on septic systems and in PlanMaryland, the state development plan. Given their growing prominence but questionable efficacy, PFAs warrant further examination. That is the purpose of this study, conducted by the Housing Strategies Group of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, and funded by the Maryland State Builders Association and NAIOP Maryland chapters. The study relies upon responses to a telephone survey of forty-seven representatives from three key stakeholder groups—planners, policy advocates and consultants, and developers. HSG made every effort to obtain the perspectives of a variety of sources but it is important to note that the survey respondents could not be said to be randomly selected and the sample size is too small for rigorous statistical analysis. While not presenting new empirical analysis of the influence of PFAs on development patterns across the State, the study does produce new information on how critical stakeholders view the efficacy of PFAs and the barriers to development inside PFAs. Survey respondents identified a number of ways to improve development conditions in PFAs, ranging from limiting the length of APFO restrictions to reducing impact fees and lowering level of service requirements for certain types of infrastructure inside PFAs. Other recommendations included expediting the state agency review processes and lessening stormwater management and other environmental protection requirements for projects inside PFAs.
Can City Lifestyle be a Catalyst for Smart Suburban Change?: A Comparative Investigation into How Asian and Latino Immigrants' Prior Urban Experiences and American's Prior Suburban Experiences Can Inform the Future Planning and Growth of Maryland Suburbs
(2004) Chang, Shenglin; LaMontagne, Aimee; Sung, Ping
The research investigates how Asian and Latino immigrants’ prior urban experiences can inform the future planning and growth of suburban communities in Maryland. The investigation of Maryland immigrants’ various built environment (dwelling, landscape, neighborhood, transportation mode) preferences will result in a set of ecologically appropriate and culturally sensitive design guidelines that will help shape the future of the rapidly growing suburban communities.
A Case for Increased State Role in Transit Planning: Analyzing Land Use and Transit Ridership Connections Using Scenarios
(2011) Chakraborty, Arnab; Mishra, Sabyasachee
Land use and neighborhood characteristics have long been linked to transit ridership. Large-scale agencies, such as state departments of transportations, often make decisions that affect land use pattern and transit services. However, the interdependencies between them are seldom harnessed in decision-making. In this article, we develop and apply a transit ridership model based on land use and other neighborhood characteristics for an entire state. We then discuss its implications for regional and state-level decision-making. We chose the state of Maryland as our study area. Using a number of criteria, we subdivided the state into 1151 statewide modeling zones (SMZs) and, for each zone in the base year (2000), developed a set of variables, including developed land under different uses, population and employment densities, free-flow and congested speeds, current transport capacities, and accessibility to different transport modes. We estimated two sets of OLS-regression models for the base year data: one on the statewide SMZs dataset and other on subsets of urban, suburban and rural typologies. We find that characteristics of land use, transit accessibility, income, and density are strongly significant and robust for the statewide and urban areas datasets. We also find that determinants and their coefficients vary across urban, suburban and rural areas suggesting the need for finely tuned policy. Next we used a suite of econometric and land use models to generate two scenarios for the horizon year (2030) – business as usual and high-energy price – and estimated ridership changes between them. We use the resulting scenarios to show how demand could vary by parts of the state and demonstrate the framework’s value in large-scale decision-making.
Changing Urban Growth Patterns in a Pro-Smart Growth State: The Case of Maryland, 1973-2002
(2007) Shen, Qing; Liu, Chao; Liao, Joe; Zhang, Feng; Dorney, Chris
This paper presents a study of recent urban growth patterns in the state of Maryland, which is known as a leader in the current smart growth movement. Five research questions are addressed in this study. First, what have been the trends in urban growth and land use in Maryland for the past 30 years? Second, to what extent have recent urban development patterns in Maryland matched the typical characterization of sprawl? Third, how have the intensity of urban land uses and the physical forms of urban growth in this state varied among its counties? Fourth, have the smart growth initiatives, especially the “Smart Growth Area Act,” significantly affected urban development patterns? Fifth, does the effectiveness of smart growth initiatives vary significantly across local jurisdictions? To answer these research questions, we measure, analyze, and model urban development patterns in Maryland using land use and land cover (LULC) and demographic data for 1973, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2002. By calculating several important indicators of urban development patterns, we find that for the past three decades population densities have continued to decrease for the state as a whole. However, this trend has slowed since 1997, when the state implemented the smart growth programs. The land conversion rate has somewhat decreased, which indicates that smart growth initiatives have helped, in a limited way, curtail the growing demand for urban land and residential space. Further, we find that the patterns of urban growth and land use have generally become slightly less fragmented and more continuous since 1997. Additionally, we find significant variations in urban development patterns among local jurisdictions. In general, higher densities, higher levels of compactness, and lower levels of fragmentation are observed in the more urbanized counties. Moreover, by estimating a series of logit models of land conversion, we find that Maryland’s “Smart Growth Area Act” has generally increased the probability of land use change from non-urban to urban for areas designated as “Priority Funding Areas.” The effectiveness of this program, however, varies significantly across the counties. We discuss the implications of these findings and identify the directions for future research.
Community Associations at Middle Age: A New Bankruptcy Law and Other Proposals
(2010) Nelson, Robert
Community associations represent a major American shift toward collective private ownership of housing, following in the path of the rise of the private business corporation 100 years ago. The laws overseeing the chartering, organizing, governing, and other aspects of business corporation workings have been significantly revised many times. It has been a case of gaining experience with corporate forms of business ownership and then responding to the problems and opportunities as they have been discovered by businessmen, researchers, and other observers. As more and more community associations now reach middle age, it is time in this area of collective property ownership as well for a full retrospective assessment and new state laws and other institutional initiatives in response to the problems and opportunities as they are identified.
Comparing Driver and Capacity Characteristics at Intersections With and Without Red Light Cameras
(2011) Weldegiorgis, Yohannes; Mishra, Sabyasachee; Jha, Manoj K.
The primary purpose of installing Red Light Cameras (RLCs) is to improve intersection safety by discouraging motorists to cross the intersection when the signal for approaching vehicles turns red. Due to the fear of being fined when crossing an RLC equipped intersection at the onset of the red signal, many approaching vehicles may have a tendency of stopping during the yellow phase. This tendency may impact intersection capacity, which can be significant in congested transportation networks during rush hours, especially when several intersections are equipped with RLCs along a sequence of traffic signals, resulting in a disruption of traffic progression. In order to examine the driver and capacity characteristics at intersections with RLCs and compare them with those without RLCs we develop a binary probit choice model to understand driver's stop and go behavior at the onset of yellow intervals, also known as dilemma zone. Further, in order to capture the impact to intersection capacity at intersections with RLCs we develop a probabilistic computational procedure using data from ten intersection pairs (with and without RLCs) in the Baltimore area. The results indicate that, in general, RLCs reduce the intersection capacity since driver's travel behavior is influenced by the presence of the cameras. Other contributory factors for the so-called capacity reduction, such as driver population (e.g., familiar vs. unfamiliar drivers) and traffic-mix (e.g., trucks vs. passenger cars) characteristics have been left for future works.
Comparing objective measures of environmental supports for pedestrian travel in adults
(Springer Nature, 2009-11-19) Shay, Elizabeth; Rodriguez, Daniel A; Cho, Gihyoug; Clifton, Kelly J; Evenson, Kelly R
Evidence is growing that the built environment has the potential to influence walking--both positively and negatively. However, uncertainty remains on the best approaches to representing the pedestrian environment in order to discern associations between walking and the environment. Research into the relationship between environment and walking is complex; challenges include choice of measures (objective and subjective), quality and availability of data, and methods for managing quantitative data through aggregation and weighting. In particular, little research has examined how to aggregate built environment data to best represent the neighborhood environments expected to influence residents' behavior. This study examined associations between walking and local pedestrian supports (as measured with an environmental audit), comparing the results of models using three different methods to aggregate and weight pedestrian features. Using data collected in 2005-2006 for a sample of 251 adult residents of Montgomery County, MD, we examined associations between pedestrian facilities and walking behaviors (pedestrian trips and average daily steps). Adjusted negative binomial and ordinary least-squares regression models were used to compare three different data aggregation techniques (raw averages, length weighting, distance weighting) for measures of pedestrian facilities that included presence, condition, width and connectivity of sidewalks, and presence of crossing aids and crosswalks. Participants averaged 8.9 walk trips during the week; daily step counts averaged 7042. The three aggregation techniques revealed different associations between walk trips and the various pedestrian facilities. Crossing aids and good sidewalk conditions were associated with walk trips more than were other pedestrian facilities, while sidewalk facilities and features showed associations with steps not observed for crossing aids and crosswalks. Among three methods of aggregation examined, the method that accounted for distance from participant's home to the pedestrian facility (distance weighting) is promising; at the same time, it requires the most time and effort to calculate. This finding is consistent with the behavioral assumption that travelers may respond to environmental features closer to their residence more strongly than to more distant environmental qualities.
The Contagion Effect of Neighboring Foreclosures on Own Foreclosures
(2010) Lawley, Chad; Towe, Charles
In this paper, we examine a highly localized contagion effect of foreclosures and find strong evidence that social interactions influence the decision to foreclose. We utilize a hazard model and a unique spatially explicit dataset documenting parcel level residential foreclosures in Maryland for the years 2006 through 2009. We combine these data with tax and assessment data, loan data, Census, and unemployment data. These data allow us to control for important factors influencing the likelihood of foreclosure within a given community, including the prevalence of subprime loans and the distribution of socioeconomic characteristics. Additionally, we use the tax data to construct variables describing individual homes, surrounding homes, and community. These variables include structural characteristics of houses, their price history, and length of ownership.
Determinants and Effects on Property Values of Participation in Voluntary Cleanup Programs: The Case of Colorado
(2005) Alberini, Anna
State Voluntary Cleanup Programs (VCPs) were established starting in the 1990s to encourage the environmental remediation and redevelopment of contaminated properties. These programs typically offer liability relief, subsidies and other regulatory incentives in exchange for site cleanup. This paper asks three questions: First, what type of properties are attracted to voluntary cleanup programs? Second, what is the interaction between these state programs and other incentives for remediation and economic development, such as Enterprise Zone and Brownfield Zone designations? Third, what is the effect of participation in the VCP on property values? We use data from Colorado’s VCP to answer these questions. We find that most of the properties enrolled in this program were not previously listed on EPA’s contaminated site registries, and that most applicants seek to obtain directly a “no further action” determination without undergoing remediation. The main determinants of participation are the size of the parcel and whether the surrounding land use is primarily residential, while other incentives have little effect. Properties with confirmed contamination sell at a 47% discount relative to comparable uncontaminated parcels, and participation tends to raise the property price, but this latter effect is not statistically significant. Taken together, these findings suggest that the participating properties are those with high development potential, and hint at the possibility that owners or developers may be seeking to obtain a clean bill of health from the State with only minimal or no cleanup efforts. Were these findings confirmed with data from other states, they would raise doubts about the effectiveness of voluntary programs in encouraging remediation and their usefulness in reversing some of the undesired effects of the Superfund legislation.
Does Job Creation Tax Credit Program in Maryland Induce Spatial Employment Growth or Redistribution?
(2002) Knaap, Gerrit; Sohn, Jungyul
The Job Creation Tax Credit (JCTC) program is one of the five major Smart Growth Programs initiated by the State of Maryland in 1996 and amended in 1997. Like other tax credit programs it is intended to create jobs, but it is also a place-based policy in the sense that eligibility is limited to jobs created in Priority Funding Areas (PFAs). This paper examines whether the JCTC program has furthered the goals of smart growth by concentrating job growth within well defined regions of the state. Towards this end, both the number and the relative share of employment inside and outside of the PFAs are compared using three econometric models. The empirical analysis examines employment in five economic sectors ((1) primary, (2) manufacturing, (3) transportation, communication and utilities (T.C.U.), (4) finance, insurance and real estate (F.I.R.E.) and (5) services) over the years (1994 to 1998) using ZIP Code data. The result shows that jobs in the T.C.U. and services industries have responded to the state incentive program while three other sectors have not; the distribution of jobs in the primary sector have grown counter to the state incentive policy and jobs in manufacturing and F.I.R.E. have been unaffected by the program.
Economic Scenarios and Development Patterns in the Baltimore‐Washington Region
(2009) Clifton, Kelly; Kaza, Nikhil; Knaap, Gerrit
This paper illustrates the use of scenarios in land use, environmental and transportation planning in and around the State of Maryland. Different assumptions about futures result in different patterns of growth with differential impacts on particular sectors of the economy. Such different patterns require formulation of contingent plans as well as robust plans. In this paper, we illustrate the quantitative modelling methodology of loosely linked economic demographic, transportation and other impact assessment models in constructing two scenarios; one of which represented the best possible guess about the continuation of the future and other involving rapid changes to energy prices and Federal spending. We illustrate the spatial development outcomes and the transportation and environmental plans that are necessary to deal with these different outcomes. Further, we illustrate that different planned actions have different efficacies in different futures and thus multiple futures should be carefully considered. Finally, we illustrate the notions of contingent plans and robust plans.
Economies of Scale in Wastewater Treatment and Planning for Urban Growth
(2003) Hopkins, Lewis; Knaap, Gerrit; Xiaohuan, Xu
Can urban growth patterns take advantage of economies of scale in infrastructure by relying on fewer and larger treatment plants? Estimates of potential cost savings from alternative wastewater treatment consolidation strategies for the metropolitan Chicago region suggest that the timing of consolidation is important. Carefully timed consolidation, even consolidation that occurs after development has occurred, might yield present value savings on the order of $170 million in capital costs. These potential savings are large enough that such strategies should be considered when planning for metropolitan growth.
The Effects of Moratoria on Residential Development: Evidence from Harford, Howard, and Montgomery Counties
(2006) Bento, Antonio M.
During the last decade, the state of Maryland was one of the fastest growing states in the United States. In response, the state has implemented an aggressive “smart growth” initiative. One of the most popular smart growth policies, adopted by several counties in the state of Maryland, is an Adequate Public Facility Ordinance (APFOs). An APFO is a spatially delineated land use control that aims to prevent development from occurring in areas where certain public services are overcrowded. An example of an APFO is a standard on elementary school capacity which limits the amount of new development at the school district level. Despite their extensive use, very little is known about the effects of these policies. The purpose of this report is to answer the following three questions: (1) What is the direct impact of an AFPO? That is, when a policy area is under moratoria, what is the resulting growth of new residential stock and how does that compare with policy areas that do not have moratoria? (2) What is the overall impact of the policy? In other words, does the policy reduce total new development in the county or does it simply re-direct growth from one policy area to another? (3) How much of the areas under moratorium overlap with Priority funding areas, in other words, are county land use policies in conflict with State smart growth priorities?
Evaluating the Impacts of the Community Legacy and Neighborhood BusinessWorks Programs: A Review of Twelve Selected Communities
(2008) Frece, John; Lewis, Rebecca; Sartori, Jason
The Community Legacy program was established in 2001 through a bill introduced by the administration of former Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening as part of the larger Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Initiative. The Community Legacy program and its companion effort, the Neighborhood BusinessWorks program, were specifically created to direct state resources to existing community-scale neighborhoods as part of the state’s broader effort to reverse a decades-long trend of urban disinvestment and abandonment. Considered somewhat unorthodox when they were started, these programs have since become readily accepted by local governments as mainstays of their revitalization strategies. In this study, the National Center for Smart Growth, working with the Division of Neighborhood Revitalization at the Department of Housing and Community Development, conducted an analysis of randomly selected Community Legacy investments from the period 2002 to 2005. The analysis provided an assessment of the impact and effectiveness of the Community Legacy program and the value of its awards to communities undergoing revitalization.
An Evaluation Procedure for Mutually Exclusive Highway Safety Alternatives under Different Policy Objectives
(2012) Khasnabis, Snehamay; Mishra, Sabyasachee; Safi, Chirag
The purpose of evaluating mutually exclusive alternatives is to select the one with the highest benefits for implementation. A number of analytic techniques are available for such evaluation purposes. Four such techniques: Cost Effectiveness (C/E), Benefit Cost Ratio (B/C), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and Pay-off Period (PP) are discussed in this paper, including their theoretical foundation and data requirements, Also discussed are the measures of effectiveness (MOE) associated with each of these techniques, and how these are to be interpreted. Alternatives to be selected for implementation following such evaluation can typically be funded under different policy objectives. Three such objectives are identified in the paper: Objective A, constrained resource perspective; Objective B, investment perspective; and Objective C, face value perspective. The possible relationship between the alternative selection and program is discussed in the paper. A case study for a set of six mutually exclusive highway safety alternatives is presented using the four analytic techniques and three objectives, resulting in various possible solutions. Results show that under compatible assumptions, and for a given policy objective, the outcome of the evaluation is not affected by the choice of the analytic technique. However, for a given analytic technique, the outcome may be affected by the choice of the policy objective chosen. The principles presented are relevant for most public projects (e.g. transit, airports, etc.) involving the investment of taxpayer resources, even though the case study involves a highway safety project.
Even Smarter Growth? Land Use, Transportation, and Greenhouse Gas in Maryland
(2014) Knaap, Gerrit; Welch, Timothy; Avin, Uri; Ducca, Fred; Mishra, Sabyasachee; Cui, Yuchen; Erdogan, Sevgi
Urban form studies have generally used regional density vs. sprawl land use scenarios to assess travel behavior outcomes. The more nuanced but nonetheless important allocation of jobs and housing and their relationship to each other as a factor in travel behavior has received much less attention. That relationship is explored in this statewide urban form study for Maryland. This is a state where county land use has a long tradition of growth management, but one whose regional and statewide implications have not been evaluated. How does a continuation of the County level smart growth regime play out statewide compared to other scenarios of job and housing distribution that are driven by higher driving costs or transit oriented development goals or local zoning rather than local policy-driven projections? Answers are provided through the application of a statewide travel demand model, the Maryland Statewide Transportation Model (MSTM). The findings suggest that the debate should move beyond walkability, density and compact growth and towards a more productive dialog about how we organize whole cities and regions.
Examination of Regional Transit Service Under Contracting: A Case Study in the Greater New Orleans Region
(Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), 2011) Iseki, Hiroyuki
Many local governments and transit agencies in the United States face financial difficulties in providing adequate public transit service in individual systems, and in providing sufficient regional coordination to accommodate transit trips involving at least one transfer between systems. These difficulties can be attributed to the recent economic downturn, continuing withdrawal of the state and federal funds that help support local transit service, a decline in local funding for transit service in inner cities due to ongoing suburbanization, and a distribution of resources that responds to geographic equity without addressing service needs. This study examines two main research questions: (1) the effect of a “delegated management” contract on efficiency and effectiveness within a single transit system, and (2) the effects of a single private firm—contracted separately by more than one agency in the same region—on regional coordination, exploring the case in Greater New Orleans. The current situation in New Orleans exhibits two unique transit service conditions. First, New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) executed a “delegated management” contract with a multinational private firm, outsourcing more functions (e.g., management, planning, funding) to the contractor than has been typical in the U.S. Second, as the same contractor has also been contracted by another transit agency in an adjacent jurisdiction—Jefferson Transit (JeT), this firm may potentially have economic incentives to improve regional coordination, in order to increase the productivity and effectiveness of its own transit service provision. Although the limited amount of available operation and financial data has prevented us from drawing more definitive conclusions, the findings of this multifaceted study should provide valuable information on a transit service contracting approach new to the U.S.: delegated management. This study also identified a coherent set of indices with which to evaluate the regional coordination of transit service, the present status of coordination among U.S. transit agencies, and barriers that need to be resolved for regional transit coordination to be successful.
Exploring Alternative Futures Using a Spatially Explicit Econometric Model
(2008) Kaza, Nikhil; Knaap, Gerrit; Meade, Douglas
This paper illustrates the application of various forecasting methodologies in constructing multiple scenarios for the state of Maryland using Long term Inter Industry Forecasting Tool that tracks inter-industry outputs at a macro scale, and State Employment Model that disaggregates these outputs to the states. We then use accessibility, land availability and observed relationships of employment categories to distribute employment at a county level. In this paper, we identify the possible advantages and pitfalls of using large scale economic models to drive employment forecasts at the county level. This framework allows for simulating the implications of macroeconomic scenarios such as changes in exchange rates and unemployment levels, as well as local land use and transportation policies on local employment and demographics. In particular, we focus on two scenarios as test cases both of which involve very different ideas about how future might unfold and their effects on land use and transportation policy prescriptions. One of the scenarios involves, among others, rises in health care spending over the next few years and the other involves increases in energy prices. As will be shown, they have different spatial effects and suggest different policy actions on the part of various governments.

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