Problems with the Central Business District

Three quarters of emissions in 2004 were coming from road traffic (Woodcock, p.1930, 2009). Emissions used from transportation are forecasted to increase from the year 2007-2030 by about 80% according to studies done by James Woodcock who is currently studying climate change and health from car fuels (Woodcock, p.1930, 2009). This is due to the fact that the emissions from vehicles are increasing significantly and are higher than any other energy fragment (Woodcock, p.1930, 2009). The only way to lower this percentage is to decrease the number of individual automobiles on the road and increase the number of public transit systems, starting long distance walking to work or school, carpooling or even biking to destinations. These principles would

First, mass motorization and increased road standards were results of inappropriate urban planning. Every two households in the US had one registered automobile on average in the mid 1930s, which is earlier than many European countries. According to this high rate of motorization, high road standards were developed by planners and engineers quickly, and cities adopted to this pattern easily. After the mortgage policies in the 1950s (1), the interstate systems destroyed urban neighborhoods and created divided urban systems by using wide big roads, so urban sprawl increased. Also, low vehicle taxes and gasoline prices reduced the cost of driving, and increased this car travel demand over time. Additionally, the government subsidized most of the gas taxes, tolls, and registration fees, and the result was the lack of public transportation in many US cities. Especially after World War II, privately owned transit systems increased ticket prices, cut services, and prompted people to own a private car. In 1970s, some of the US cities started to promote walking and cycling with appropriate amenities (1), but it was not enough to change people’s travel behaviors. Lastly, maybe most importantly, zoning laws do not allow mixed land-use planning which facilitates shorter trips between amenities in most of the US cities. Zoning laws, also requires a minimum number of parking lots per usage, rather than the maximum numbers of limited parking such as most European

People flock to certain areas of the city that are more attractive and parks/recreational areas are

Task #1 : Analyse the impacts of at least two urban dynamics operating in a large city of the developed world.

In this paper, I will be outlining the costs and benefits of social and technological fixes, and then I will be assessing the use of social and technological fixes of air pollution through the use of automobiles.

This document specifically highlights how the Gold Coast City Council is tackling the city’s issue of traffic congestion by improving the existing structure of the roads and public transport. Hopefully this will decrease the number vehicles on the road which will reduce the amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere (City of Gold Coast, 2013).

Making the use of public transportation easy will make those families use it. It would also be better because maintenance of a car would be more expensive than the usage of public transportation. Public Transportation will not only decrease the number of vehicles, it will decrease the number of automobiles that are old and environmentally unsound. Apart from that,if only the immigrants use the public transportation, that would not be the solution for air pollution since the SUVs and the cars with big engines in the richer part of the city also cause air pollution in city of Los Angeles. As I mentioned before Los Angeles is renowned as the capital of the movie and the show world. Because of its reputation, the city has become a favorite spot among wealthy people and it adds a different aspect to our issue. In the certain parts of the city, luxurious and dashing life style is obtained by families. Most of these families have an individual car for each family member and these cars are mostly either SUVs or cars with high fuel consumptions. Therefore it would be a lot harder to solve this problem because of the fact that people with certain incomes are not likely to use public transportation. Efficiency of the public transportation should be as high as possible so people would actually have to use it. Los Angeles is so spread out that the transportation itself is actually a problem. If the City of Los Angeles

When Dallas started its citywide grid system, it was a very pedestrian friendly town. Buildings were built close to the street, roads were very narrow, sidewalks were wide,

The author Jeff Speck is city planner and an urban designer. He is trying to save Americans lives by trying to make the city more walkable since automobiles have now become a great danger to the Americans. This book is more concerned with cars and buildings in order to achieve the goal of a walkable city. People are the lifeblood of the city and not cars therefore, in order to pull off the feat of ushering America to the urban century, there is need to prove to people that walkability is important and also that their actions and decisions will help will to improve this aspect.

Congestion and traffic pollution has been a major problem in New York City for years. There have been many laws, tolls, and fines implemented over the past few decades to try and fix the problem. Yet, congestion still exists. Congestion occurs when there is overcrowding on roadways that’s causes traffic jams. There are several reasons for the severity of this issue. Congestion causes a lot of delays in the city. It is unlikely that people are on time for anything, even if they planned ahead. With traffic in the city the way it is, you can’t blame them. The indirect effect of congestion is traffic pollution. Traffic pollution is polluting of the environment caused by harmful toxins and gases given released by cars. The amount of pollution

Many downtowns first emerged as a distinctive place due to elite residents with homes in the area, which served as meeting places for important business transactions. By the late 19th century downtowns had typically been laid out with designated business blocks (Ford 2003). The growth of the business block as an economic center and booming downtown forced out any competition that were not appropriate with “high rents, social pressure and architectural change” (Ford 2003, pp 45). This was the origin of the spatial structure and land use patterns that are associated with contemporary downtowns. The origin of the town structure is most commonly affiliated with European cities as models of spatial layout. Specialty business and retail districts that characterized American downtowns and what we now image a good downtown to be are directly linked to it European counterpart. The key characteristic that defer from the European model was the tendency for American cities to be street-oriented rather then place-oriented. This contributed to the more linear structure of the city, business pursued locations on the “main street” rather then near major plazas or religious buildings (Robertson 1997).

Globally, numerous urban cities such as New York City and London have the issue of traffic congestion, and in the United States, Los Angeles and New York City take the top title of the worst traffic jams (Bekiempis). Even though traffic congestion ratings may not indicate how much air pollution in an area, most times, traffic congestion does communicate the approximate degree air pollution lies at. Atlanta does have an honorable—or rather, notorious—mention of daily traffic congestion, even though Atlanta’s traffic may not live up to the scale of that of New York City. The quality of air in the Atlanta metropolitan area can also play a testament to how far traffic congestion has gone in the

Public transportation can help reduce stress caused by driving, save money, and also protect our environment by reducing the number of vehicles on the road. In order to get more people off the road and into the public transportation system we must increase the number of buses and taxis that are available. We must also increase the number of stops available for daily bus routes. With more stops on the map more people are likely to use the bus system. Each city or town will be able to decide where more bus stops are needed and make the adjustments necessary to provide better service for the taxpaying citizens. Of course, none of this is possible without adequate funds in each town/city and the gas tax is guaranteed to provide those funds. Providing more public transportation will help us reach our ultimate goal of protecting the environment and ourselves.

With an increase in urbanization, more people are moving to the industrial cities in pursuit of alternative lifestyle and jobs. Life in city and suburbs can be compared and contrasted with various aspects in mind since they share quite some details in as much as they are vastly different. Firstly, the transportation is more accessible in the city as compared to the suburb where there are no apt transport networks as compared to the city, among the transport mode in the city are subways, busses, trams and ferries. These provide easy, fast and cheap means of getting around in the city in as much as the streets are crowded. This is in contrast to the suburbs since owning a car is mandatory since such public transport systems are not available. When the costs of insurance, fuel expenses and time of commuting are added up then transport in suburbs is seen to be expensive when compared to that in the city. The easy transport in the city does not come all rosy since the city is also flooded with traffic jams due to congestion and this can render transport slow. This is contrast with suburb life where there is no traffic and hence with no congestion traveling in suburbs is more peaceful (Boulter, 2005).

Cities are places which have huge amount of gathering of people, collection of economic activities and complex infrastructure for people which all together are supported by transport systems.