Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Does California High-Speed Rail Promote Accessibility For Station Cities?: Case Study Of Fresno And Merced, Chih-Hao Wang, Na Chen

Mineta Transportation Institute

California High-Speed Rail (CHSR) will largely change transportation cost across the state after it starts operating. Past studies show that only Fresno and Merced among station cities in the Central Valley would attract more future activities with the CHSR. The establishment of active CHSR also implies a new daily living sphere for all the station cities, and, therefore, accessibility to work and residential amenities should be reviewed to inform planners of future land-use and transportation developments. A research framework has been developed better to understand the impact of CHSR on job and amenity accessibility by driving, transit, and walking in …

Suitability Assessment For Integrated Urban Development In Makkah City Of Saudi Arabia, Mislat Alotaibi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Makkah – the third most populated city in Saudi Arabia with a population of 1,684,408 according to the 2010 demographic survey conducted by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics – is experiencing urban sprawl, which can be defined as an unplanned urban expansion that might degrade the environment and diminish the aesthetic view. This is a persisting problem in Makkah driven by multitude of processes involving the random expansion in its undeveloped land and the removal of its historic mountains surrounding Al-Masjid Al-Haram (the Holy Mosque) in an attempt to push the city limit of urban capacity within its administrative …

Minimizing Vehicular Traffic Via Optimized Land Use Development For A Sustainable And Equitable Future, Babu Veeregowda

Dissertations

Mixed-use developments and transit-oriented developments are becoming very common in urban areas in an effort to reduce sprawl. Numerous studies have shown that such programs would not be successful unless the mix of land uses and sizes is well-balanced and integrated with the surrounding neighborhood. Developers often ignore this aspect in favor of immediate financial gain and do not realize that there are sustainable financial benefits in land use optimization. In addition, professionals often work with limited logistics, resources, and technical knowledge and therefore struggle in setting goals and suggesting land uses that have less auto dependency based on travel …

The Effect Of Urbanization On The Embodied Energy Of Drinking Water In Tampa, Florida, Mark Vincent Eli Santana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing urbanization has serious implications for resource and energy use. One of these resources is drinking water. The increased amount of impervious surfaces associated with urban development is responsible for increased runoff during rain events, which may have a negative impact on the quality of nearby bodies of water, including drinking water sources. The growing populations associated with urbanization require a higher water demand. In addition, urban drinking water systems use energy to collect, treat, and distribute a safe reliable effluent to users. Therefore, this study focuses on the degree to which urbanization influences the embodied energy of drinking water …

Impacts Of Climate Change On The Evolution Of The Electrical Grid, Melissa Ree Allen

Doctoral Dissertations

Maintaining interdependent infrastructures exposed to a changing climate requires understanding 1) the local impact on power assets; 2) how the infrastructure will evolve as the demand for infrastructure changes location and volume and; 3) what vulnerabilities are introduced by these changing infrastructure topologies. This dissertation attempts to develop a methodology that will a) downscale the climate direct effect on the infrastructure; b) allow population to redistribute in response to increasing extreme events that will increase under climate impacts; and c) project new distributions of electricity demand in the mid-21^st century.

The research was structured in three parts. The first …

The Role Of Proximity In Reducing Auto Travel: Using Vmt To Identify Key Locations For Development, From Downtown To The Exurbs, Robert B. Case

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to discover the VMT impact of each level of proximity in order to help government identify key locations for housing development, and thereby lower VMT and reduce dependence on foreign oil. By discovering the VMT impact of each level of proximity, this dissertation provides a) the first known means of calculating the proximity-based VMT benefit of subject locations by individual proximity level, and b) the new finding that it is likely that high VMT benefit can be achieved at moderate proximity levels acceptable to many households, enabling representative governments to be politically successful while …

Rebirth Of The Downtown Industrial District--Key To Revitalization, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Residents were there by the hundreds to welcome home one of their noteworthy product of a previous era. 'Old 299' had just returned from the Panama Canal Zone to its final resting place in the New Paterson Museum, a fitting climax for the 2-6-0 'Mogul' type steam locomotive that was born here in 1906. And June 6, 1979 marked the gala return of one of the few remaining American-made locomotives that were so instrumental in the construction of the Panama Canal by this nation in the period from 1904 to 1914, after earlier unsuccessful attempts by the French."

Momentous Decision: Capital Center Project, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"It may very well be the most important decision facing Providence in this century; it would provide new commercial space approximately one and one-half times that found in the present downtown; it would remove black and ugly 'dead' space (parking) from the foot of the state Capitol and replace it with acres of greenery and enhanced riverfront; it would provide better access into the downtown and facilitate the east-west flow of traffic; it would drastically alter the focus of the downtown; and it would greatly increase the tax base of the capital city. The Capital Center Project, with its proposed …