A Study to the Influence of the Implementation of a Mass Transport System on Land Use

Completed 2016

Mobility is one of the largest challenges that cities face worldwide.  At the time this these was developed, Bogotá (Colombia) was conducting a critical process regarding the definition of its new mobility backbone, which was proposed to be a metro system.  The influence of that system is extrapolated to other components of the city, such as land use.  This study analyzed the influence of a metro system in three other cities with characteristics similar to Bogotá (Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Boston) in order to forecast the changes and challenges that Bogotá will face after the implementation of such a system.  This study looked at the change of some socio-demographic characteristics, ridership, and policy planning to estimate the changes of land uses after some years of system use.  The analysis was made using spatial analysis tools in ArcGIS such as Local and Global Moran's I.

The finding of the study suggested that the increase of diversity in one city studied was noticeable.  In Washington, the land's use around the metro changed from different types to commercial.  The infers that the diversity of facilities has become stronger in this city.  In other cases, such as Boston and Atlanta, the diversity did not show a strong change in use.  Rather, the changes in those cities focused on density.  Additionally, it was possible to notice that those cities have increased their populations in the zones around metro stations.  A buffer of 500 meters was the distance that showed the most remarkable clustering changes around the metro lines.

In terms of non-motorized systems, the long range transportation plans (LRTP) enabled verification of how all of the case studies have made the improvement of non-motorized systems one of their main goals. Moreover, it was detected that some of the four cities discussed have their metro systems as their main axis of mass transportation.  Transportation Oriented Development (TOD) policies studied through the literature reviewed were identified in the LRTPs of all cities studied.  The metro systems in most of these cities influenced the development of the other public transportation systems.

This document is the abstract from Lisa Losada Rojas's undergraduate thesis, submitted at the National University of Colombia, based on work conducted while she was a visiting scholar in the STSRG at Purdue.