Modeling Long-Range Transportation and Land Use Scenarios for the Sacramento Region, Using Citizen-Generated Policies

摘要

The Sacramento, California region engaged in an innovative long-range visioning process during 2004 and 2005 in which the regional transportation planning agency defined and modeled several 50-year growth scenarios. The authors of this report worked with environmental and social equity community groups to define policies that would reduce emissions, serve lower-income travelers better, and preserve habitats and agricultural lands in the region. The community groups rejected the new freeways planned for the region, as well as the substantial freeway widening for HOV lanes. In addition, they defined a more ambitious transit system, involving new bus rapid transit lines and shorter headways for all rail and bus service. This transit-only plan was modeled by itself, and with a land use policy for an urban growth boundary and a pricing plan for higher fuel taxes and parking charges for work trips. Using a new version of the MEPLAN model to simulate these scenarios over 50 years, the authors describe their findings regarding total travel, mode shares, congestion, emissions, land use changes, and economic welfare of travelers.