Transport and town planning: the city in search of sustainable development

333 Pages·2019·35.421 MB·English

by  Laterrasse, Jean

Transport and Town Planning
To Th.B. Aw and M. El-Hadeuf,
with all my thanks for your contributions
Transport and Town Planning

The City in Search of
Sustainable Development

Jean Laterrasse
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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ISBN 978-1-78630-329-5
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Chapter 1. City and Complexity: How to Untangle the Skein? . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. Systemic thinking and its historical context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. The system approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Analytical and systemic methods are complementary rather
than opposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Transdisciplinarity of the concept of system and presentation
of a typology of complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5. The concept of variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.6. Keys to analyzing a system: functions and structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.6.1. The concept of function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.6.2. The concept of structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.7. From description to analysis and action: the example of flowcharts . . . . . . 16
1.8. Concept of model and systemic modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.9. An application of systemic analysis: study of the relationships
between transport networks and territory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.10. Action as a method of knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 2. Town Planning and Urban Pattern: the Emergence
of Circulatory Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1. The first urban fabrics: two founding patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2. Advent of circulatory function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2.1. Powerful changes implemented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2.2. Cerdà, the theoretician . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.2.3. Haussmann, the realist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
vi Transport and Town Planning
2.3. The effects of the mechanization of modes of transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.1. The linear city of Arturo Soria y Mata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3.2. Garden cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.4. Urban transport: a chaotic development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.4.1. A public interest service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.4.2. Mechanization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.5. Advent of electric traction and its success following the
construction of the Paris subway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.5.1. The accident “founder” of the Couronnes station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.5.2. The first wave of automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.5.3. The triptych of innovation: technologies, organization
and professions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.6. The tramway: from its disappearance in France to its rebirth . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.6.1. The development period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.6.2. Decline of the tramway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.6.3. The rebirth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.7. The automobile city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.7.1. Progressive town planning and the functional specification
of spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.7.2. The convergence between functionalism and naturalism . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.8. Towards the public transport city? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.8.1. The “omnipresent automobile” in question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.8.2. “Transport-oriented development” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.8.3. The end of utopias? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 3. Building of New Towns: an Attempt at Linking
Transport Networks to Urban Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.1. From imaginary new towns to their achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.1.1. The initial project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.1.2. A new territorial organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.1.3. The structuring role of big transportation infrastructures . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.1.4. A period rich in innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.1.5. An undeniable success? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2. The case of Marne-la-Vallée . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2.1. Marne-la-Vallée’s entry into the regional space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2.2. The evolution of the overall administrative and institutional
framework of new towns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.3. The specific institutional organization of Marne-la-Vallée . . . . . . . . . 74
3.3 A mixed report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.3.1. Population growth stimulated by housing construction . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Contents vii
3.3.2. Activities, employment and job/active population balance
in new towns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.3.3. The importance of areas reserved for activities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.3.4. Employment location areas and source of active population . . . . . . . . 83
3.3.5. Internal circulation in Marne-la-Vallée new town – the
most overlooked of urban planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3.3.6. Motorization and servicing of the population by
public transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.3.7. Gradual saturation of the main road network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.3.8. What lessons can be drawn? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Chapter 4. Models and Definitions: Changing the Paradigm . . . . . . . . . 93
4.1. The mobility model that was developed in France from the 1950s . . . . . . . 95
4.1.1. Mobility and urban sprawl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.1.2. Mobility and land market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
4.1.3. Characteristics specific to France? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.1.4. Planning “formatted” by the use of cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.2. A model whose coherence and sustainability are undermined . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.2.1. Lessons of the subprime crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.2.2. Land rents create shortages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.2.3. A system that aggravates socio-spatial disparities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.2.4. The forms taken by urbanization in France present
real advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.3. Back to town planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.3.1. Two essential models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.3.2. From models to concrete cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.3.3. Town planning as a coherent layout of places,
functions, structures, representations and forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Chapter 5. Good Practices and Levers of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1 Influence of urban metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1.1. Urban form: what is it all about? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1.2. Reflecting on real cities and choosing a systematic approach . . . . . . . . 129
5.2. Innovations and good practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.2.1. European cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.2.2. The North American case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
5.3. Major levers of action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
5.3.1. Land use planning and transport networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.3.2. Transport-specific measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.3.3. Tariff and regulatory measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.3.4. What should be expected of new technologies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
viii Transport and Town Planning
Chapter 6. What if the 21st Century was the Century of Suburbs? . . . . . 177
6.1. French cities: undeniable progress but a long way to go . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.1.1. Legislative progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
6.1.2. Tangible results, but shortcomings and strong resistance . . . . . . . . . . 179
6.2. Suburbs: characteristics, challenges and future prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
6.2.1. History and semantics of the suburb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
6.2.2. The suburbs change dimension with the industrial revolution . . . . . . . 183
6.2.3. From workers’ houses to the construction of large complexes . . . . . . . 184
6.2.4. Transport in difficulties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.2.5. A real potential for sustainable urban development . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
6.3. A prospective reflection by 2050 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.3.1. The context of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.3.2. Assumptions adopted for establishing a “target scenario” . . . . . . . . . 192
6.3.3. Method used for the simulation of the target scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
6.3.4. Achieved results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
6.3.5. Elements concerning the financial equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
6.4. Transport and town planning articulation at the local level:
the case of the southern suburbs of Ile-de-France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
6.4.1. The Trans Val-de-Marne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
6.4.2. Setting up of the line 183 dedicated bus lane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
6.5. Significance and diversity of local approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
6.5.1. The municipalities that objected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
6.5.2. Municipalities that might have wished to do better . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
6.5.3. Municipalities that succeeded in making dedicated lanes
a lever for urban restructuring: the case of Vitry-sur-Seine . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
6.5.4. What lessons? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Chapter 7. Methods and Tools for Urban Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
7.1. Urban transition and prospective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
7.2. An iterative and interactive approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
7.3. Backcasting and forecasting approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
7.4. Development of a conceptual framework for the assessment
and monitoring of the transition process (backcasting approach) . . . . . . . . . . . 235
7.4.1. Importance of territorial diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
7.4.2. The establishment of a complete and coherent set
of indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
7.4.3. Advantages of the proposed conceptual framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
7.5. Assessment methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
7.5.1. Methods based on life cycle assessment (LCA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
7.5.2. Socio-economic methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254