land use | National Center for Sustainable Transportation

Performance-Based Approaches to Incentivize Local Adoption of Sustainable Land-Use Policies

Principal Investigator Gian-Claudia Sciara, Ph.D.
University of California, Davis

This white paper focuses on the relationship between land use policies and driving patterns. It recommends strategies for enhancing local land use performance in reducing vehicle trips and increasing non-auto use.

Project Status

Complete

Policy, Preference and Practicality: An Investigation into Millennial Housing Choice, and the Policies and Practicalities of Densifying Development in California

Principal Investigator Jamey Volker, PhD
University of California, Davis

This dissertation synthesizes three different studies in order to evaluate how housing and land use impact amount of vehicle miles traveled.

Project Status

Complete

Quantifying the Effect of Local Government Actions on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)

Research Product Type

Planning Tool

This research resulted in a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Impact spreadsheet tool, which lets users easily see impacts for any census tract, city, or region in California.

Research on Impacts of Transportation and Land Use-Related Strategies on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Science Behind Sustainable Communities

As part of the UC Davis Capitol Speaker Series, Susan Handy presented “Research on Impacts of Transportation and Land Use-Related Strategies on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Science Behind Sustainable Communities.” The presentation is shown below.

Apr 8, 2016 @ 11:30am - 12:30pm
California State Capitol, Room 126 1315 10th St, Sacramento, CA
Event Details

Simulating the Effects of Shared Automated Vehicles and Benefits to Low-Income Communities in Los Angeles

Research Product Type

Policy Brief

Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Technical University of Berlin evaluated questions around the impacts of automated vehicles by simulating three scenarios in the Westside Cities area using an open-source, dynamic, agent-based travel model called MATSim, then calculated the benefits of each scenario compared to the base case for various income groups.

Single-Family Neighborhoods in Sacramento Have Sufficient Parking to Accommodate Accessory Dwelling Units

Research Product Type

Policy Brief

UC Davis researchers surveyed homeowners in Sacramento and collected lot size and other data to investigate whether the total effective parking supply of the average single-family detached home is sufficient to accommodate the vehicles associated with the residents of both a primary dwelling and a potential ADU.

Smart Growth Trip Generation

Principal Investigator Susan Handy, Ph.D.
University of California, Davis

The goal of this project is to develop and disseminate data and a method that practitioners can use to estimate multimodal trip-generation rates for “smart growth” land use development projects proposed in California.

Project Status

Complete

Smart Growth Trip-Generation Adjustment Tool

Research Product Type

Planning Tool

This is a spreadsheet tool that can be used to adjust available trip-generation rates for “smart growth” land use projects proposed in California.

Spatial Dynamics of the Logistics Industry and Implications for Freight Flows

Principal Investigator Genevieve Giuliano, Ph.D.
University of Southern California

This project examines changes in the spatial pattern of warehousing and distribution (W&D) activities and how these changes may impact truck vehicle miles traveled.

Project Status

Complete

Streamlining the Development Approval Process in a Post–Level of Service Los Angeles

Research Product Type

Associated Publication

Researchers used a historical counterfactual approach to assess how replacing level of service with vehicle miles traveled could have affected the approval process for 153 land development projects over 16 years in the city of Los Angeles.