NCHRP Web-Only Document 211: Close to Home: A Handbook for Transportation-Efficient Growth in Small Communities and Rural Areas | Transportation Research Board

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Hundreds of studies have investigated how land use affects daily driving in urban and suburban areas. The studies have provided a vocabulary for describing the specific land use characteristics
that are most influential, such as: density, diversity of land uses, neighborhood layout, distance to employment centers, and distance to transit. In addition, the studies have shaped the public’s discussion of important environmental issues, helping motivate interest in land use planning as a tool that local governments can use to accommodate employment and population growth while reducing growth in greenhouse gas emissions from residents’ vehicles.

Very few of those studies have looked at small communities and rural areas. This handbook
is intended to help fill that gap by providing insights into the relationship between a small/rural
area’s existing development patterns and changes in daily driving after hypothetical new growth.
The handbook offers a vocabulary of land use characteristics that are significant in small communities and rural areas. It also estimates the change in daily driving per person after
hypothetical growth occurs according to different development visions or scenarios.

Three typical, actual small communities and rural areas that have substantially different population densities were investigated. The investigations were carried out using three
computer models of travel patterns, one model for each small community and rural area. The computer models are integrated land use-transport models that were built specifically for this
project. Their primary purpose is to predict how travel, specifically total vehicle-miles traveled and per person vehicle-miles traveled, might change in response to hypothetical changes in employment, population, and land use patterns.

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NCHRP Web-Only Document 211: Close to Home: A Handbook for Transportation-Efficient Growth in Small Communities and Rural Areas | Transportation Research Board