Transportation Indicators For Sustainability

1 250-360-1560 Todd Alexander Litman 2006-2016 You are welcome and encouraged to copy, distribute, share and excerpt this document and its ideas, provided the author is given attribution. Please send your corrections, comments and suggestions for improvement. Well Measured Developing Indicators for Sustainable and Livable Transport Planning 25 November 2016 Todd Litman Victoria Transport Policy Institute A world view taken in 1972 as Apollo 17 left Earth orbit for the Moon. (Courtesy of NASA). Abstract This report provides guidance on the use of Indicators for sustainable and livable Transportation planning. It defines Sustainability and livability, discusses sustainable development and sustainable transport concepts, and how Sustainability Indicators can be applied in transport evaluation and planning.

2 It describes factors to consider when selecting sustainable Transportation Indicators , identifies examples of Indicators and indicator sets, and provides recommendations for selecting sustainable transport Indicators for use in a particular situation. A shorter version of this paper was published as, Developing Indicators For Comprehensive And Sustainable Transport Planning, Transportation Research Record 2017, Transportation Research Board ( ), 2007, pp. 10-15. Well Measured: Developing Indicators for Sustainable And Livable Transport Planning Victoria Transport Policy Institute 1 Contents Preface .. 2 Executive Summary .. 3 Introduction .. 6 Defining Sustainability , Livability and Sustainable Transport.

3 7 Sustainability Planning Process .. 13 Factors to Consider When Selecting Indicators .. 14 Vehicle Travel As A Sustainability indicator .. 17 Trends Affecting Sustainability and Livability Planning .. 18 Ecological Economics .. 19 Indicators By Category .. 20 Economic Indicators .. 20 Social Indicators .. 23 Environmental Indicators .. 24 Accounting Indicators .. 25 Conventional Transport Indicators .. 26 Sustainable Transportation Principles .. 27 Sustainable Landscape: Guiding Principles of a Sustainable Site (ASLA 2009) .. 27 National Round Table for Environment and Economy (NRTEE 1996) .. 28 Examples of Sustainable Transportation indicator Sets .. 30 Sustainable Development Indicators (not specific to Transportation ).

4 30 Sustainable Transportation indicator Sets .. 36 Sustainable Transportation Indicators .. 37 Sustainable Infrastructure .. 54 Transport Agency Sustainability Evaluation .. 59 Incremental Improvements To Conventional Transport Evaluation .. 61 Good Examples Of Bad indicator Sets .. 66 Livability Objectives and Indicators .. 73 Best Practices .. 75 Data Quality and Availability .. 78 Examples .. 81 88 Acknolwedgments .. 90 References and Resources .. 90 Well Measured: Developing Indicators for Sustainable And Livable Transport Planning Victoria Transport Policy Institute 2 Preface Our family s house was built more than a century ago. On the walls hang photographs of our ancestors born more than 150 years ago.

5 Our shelves contain books more than 200 years old. We ve visited ancient cities, roads, structurs and artwork more than two thousand years old. Our religion celebrates events that more than four thousand years ago. Many tools we use daily, such as knives, pottery and weaving, were first invented tens of thousands of years old. Looking backward in time, we are directly affected by decisions made centuries and millennia ago, but our thinking about the future tends to be more limited. Households and communities generally only plan a few years or decades into the future; thirty or forty years is generally the limit. Yet, most people share a basic human desire to leave a positive legacy for future generations, without it we would not invest in education, durable infrastructure, or environmental quality.

6 Described differently, most people desire economic, social and environmental Sustainability . This is an important new concept because only recently have people been burdened with uncertainty about society s long-term future. Although technological progress has improved our quality of life in many ways, it can also exacerbate many problems, including war, oppression, resource depletion, environmental damages, and social alienation, which threaten the quality and very existence of future generations. In the past, futurists debated whether the future would lead to utopia (an ideal world) or dystopia (a degraded world). Sustainable development reflects a more sophisticated understanding of our impacts: it recognizes that our future will result, in part, on our current decisions.

7 We cannot simply predict the future, instead we create it. Sustainability includes more than just long-term planning. If we are concerned with the quality of life and environment in distant times, we must also be concerned the quality of life in distant places, even if only because we care about our own descendants, since they will be affected by, and possibly descended from, people in other parts of the world. Since economic, social and environmental activities interact in so many ways, most experts now agree that Sustainability requires balancing these various realms. A basic principle of good planning is that individual, short-term decisions should reflect strategic, long-term objectives.

8 Sustainability planning provides guidance to insure that individual decisions balance economic, social and environmental objectives, taking into account indirect, distant, and long-term impacts. Sustainability and sustainable development are generally considered desirable, although some conditions should not be sustained, such as hate, poverty and ignorance, and these terms are sometimes used to promote a particular policy or project that may only vaguely reflect strategic planning objectives. As a result, there is potential for legitimate debate concerning what Sustainability policies are truly desirable. None-the-less, Sustainability principles properly applied can improve decision making, particularly for strategic policy making and planning.

9 Well Measured: Developing Indicators for Sustainable And Livable Transport Planning Victoria Transport Policy Institute 3 Executive Summary There is growing interest in the concepts of Sustainability , livability, sustainable development and sustainable transport. Sustainability balances economic, social and environmental goals and objectives (goals are general desired outcomes, objectives are specific, measurable ways to achieve goals), including those that involve indirect and long-term impacts, as indicated in Table 1 and Figure 1. Livability refers to the subset of Sustainability objectives that directly affect community members. They generally share the same objectives, but often with somewhat differing perspectives and priorities.

10 For example, both justify efforts to reduce pollution, although Sustainability often focuses on climate change emissions while livability focuses on local air and noise pollution. Table ES-1 Sustainability Goals Economic Social Environmental Economic productivity Local economic development Resource efficiency Affordability Operational efficiency Equity / Fairness Safety and security Community development Cultural heritage preservation Public fitness and health Climate change prevention and mitigation Air, noise and water pollution prevention Non-Renewable Resource Conservation Openspace preservation Biodiversity protection Good Governance and Planning Integrated, comprehensive and inclusive planning Efficient pricing Italics indicates livability objectives.