Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388

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Research in Transportation Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/retrec

Land use/transport integration: Starting at the right place

John K. Stanley*
Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, The University of Sydney, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Urban transport problems are increasingly being tackled as part of integrated land use/transport stra-
Available online 23 October 2014 tegies. Thredbo 12 discussed high level goals against which urban public transport systems and services
should be assessed and highlighted the importance of taking an integrated approach to land use/
JEL classification: transport planning. It did not elaborate on how to achieve integration. The Melbourne Metropolitan
R11 Planning Strategy, in preparation, has provided an opportunity to explore this question. This study has
R12
underlined the importance of understanding structural economic changes that are influencing a city's
R41
economic geography, extending the idea of what should be part of an ‘integrated approach’. This
R58
structural economic approach has highlighted the importance of land use/transport solutions that differ
Keywords: from what might normally feature in a narrower transport prioritisation process. The Melbourne study
Agglomeration has taken both top down and bottom up approaches to strategy integration, which has also widened the
Integrated planning emerging strategic transport priorities from those that meet trunk service needs to also include local or
Neighbourhood transport neighbourhood level services. These can play important roles in promoting social inclusion and improved
Social goals
wellbeing. The paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the Melbourne study and suggests ways
Transport planning
in which it can contribute to better practice in integrated land use/transport strategic planning.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Workshop 3A at the Thredbo 12 Conference explored the high
level social goals against which public transport services should
ultimately be judged, building on deliberations in preceding
Thredbo Conferences (Stanley & Smith, 2013). Workshop partici-
pants highlighted the significance of land use/transport integration,
in particular, for successful transport outcomes, with long term
land use strategies (e.g. 25e40 years) leading long term transport
strategies and being linked to shorter term implementation plans
(e.g. 5e10 years). The workshop did not elaborate on how to best
achieve such an integrated approach or what difference it might
make to transport priorities.
This paper builds on the integration findings from Thredbo 12. It
uses a case study approach to discuss the development of an in-
tegrated land use/transport strategy for a major city and the types
of (public) transport priorities that might emerge there from,
contrasting these priorities to those that might result from a nar-
rower transport planning framework. The case study is for Mel-
bourne, Australia, where the author has been deeply involved in
* Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (C13), The University of Sydney
Business School, NSW 2006, Australia. Tel.: þ61 418992227.
E-mail address: john.stanley@sydney.edu.au.
developing a new integrated land use/transport strategy for the city
over the past year, as a member of the small independent Minis-
terial Advisory Committee established to assist the Victorian State
Ministers for Planning and Transport prepare the new strategy.
Section 2 provides some background on emerging good practice
in land use/transport strategies, as a basis to consider the Mel-
bourne study. Section 3 summarises key challenges facing Mel-
bourne's long term land use/transport planning, focussing
particularly on the importance placed on understanding the major
structural economic changes that are affecting the city's economic
geography and outlook. It also outlines the vision and goals of the
strategy. Section 3.4 discusses the major land use directions that
have been identified as likely to support high level goal achieve-
ment. Section 3.5 sets out the major transport directions that
should assist achievement of the intended land use outcomes.
Section 4 highlights the main strengths and weaknesses of the
Melbourne study and suggests several key lessons that have
emerged, which may help to improve practice elsewhere.
2. Emerging good practice in integrated land use/transport
strategic planning
A text book could be written under this heading but, instead, the
focus will be kept to a small number of important contextual

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2014.09.067
0739-8859/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
382 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
matters that have been highlighted in some recent literature rele-
vant to integrated land use/transport planning.
Transport policy has now largely moved beyond the ‘predict
and provide’ days, in which supply responds to demand (one goal).
The pursuit of triple bottom line sustainability goals is now usual,
with demand management one policy focus to assist achievement.
Integrated long term land use/transport strategies now almost
universally list variants of the triple bottom line (economic, social
and environmental) sustainability goals as their strategic goals,
with particular priorities between goals reflecting local
circumstances.
More broadly, Chapin (2012) has argued that Sustainable
Growth is emerging as the fourth era of urban planning over the
past sixty years. The three preceding paradigms are described as
Era of Growth Controls (~1950e75 in the US), Era of Comprehensive
Planning (~1975e2000), Era of Smart Growth (~1990 e present
day). Key defining issues of the Smart Growth Era are listed by
Chapin as environmental degradation, infrastructure provision,
place making, urban economic development and those for the
Sustainable Growth Era are economic development, environmental
degradation, climate change, energy demand and supply. In the
Smart Growth Era, growth is seen as an opportunity for strength-
ening urban communities; in the Sustainable Growth Era it is seen
as inevitable and essential but needing to be balanced against the
long term sustainability goal (from Chapin 2012, Table 1).
The pursuit of multiple objectives underlines the importance of
policy packaging (Givoni, Macmillan, Bannister, & Feitelson, 2013).
Access to jobs, education, services, friends, recreational and cultural
opportunities and the like are common reasons why people need to
move around cities, reflecting the derived demand for most travel.
Accessibility ties land use and transport together. Policy packaging
for transport in cities over the long term is fundamentally about
integrating land use and transport to enhance accessibility and
reduce external costs.
Givoni et al. (2013) suggest that both the value from, and
complexity of, policy packing will increase with the spatial scale of
the problems being considered. Highlighting both the systemic and
political dimensions of policy packaging, they propose a three stage
heuristic framework for such packaging, comprising: (1) objec-
tives and targets; (2) causal theory and measure inventory; and (3)
dynamic ex ante appraisal and packaging. This framework provides
a useful way of thinking about how to undertake an integrated land
use/transport plan for a major city and, more specifically, about
how to analyze what has been done in a particular study, such as
the Melbourne case study.
Transport policy responses to the multiple, pressing and near
universal city problems of traffic congestion, air pollution, green-
house gas emissions, a high road toll, energy insecurity, social
exclusion and increasing obesity from a lack of exercise are
increasingly looking to long term, land use based, solutions, as part
of an integrated policy approach. The long term response typically
focuses on achieving more compact urban settlement patterns
(higher densities), which are widely thought to help manage/
reduce most of the transport problems listed. This focus is reflected
in such movements as Smart Growth, New Urbanism and Transit
Oriented Development (see, for example, Haas 2008). Hall (2008, p.
48) describes new urbanism as follows:
Every planner and every plan repeats the same mantra: compact
urban places, designed for walking and cycling and public
transport; densities to support that objective; mixed uses,
especially in and around town centres; a return to traditional
urban designs with sidewalks and street blocks …
The critical needs are densities to ensure shops within walking
distance and good access to transit.
Links between regional and neighbourhood level built form
variables (e.g. density, distance from the CBD, diversity of land uses,
street network connectivity, distance from transit) and travel,
particularly kilometres of motor vehicle travel, tend to be small in
relation to individual policy measures but can be significant when
policy packaged (Ewing & Cervero, 2010). Levine, Grengs, Shen and
Shen (2012)have shown that accessibility levels can be improved
with more compact urban development patterns, even if conges-
tion levels increase.
The focus on achieving more compact cities has primarily
concentrated on increasing densities through high rise develop-
ment in central/inner areas, where accessibility levels are usually
highest. However, there is growing interest in increasing densities
through medium rise development in established inner/middle
ring suburbs, with a focus on creating complete communities. This
is reflected, for example, in the Prince's Foundation's (2014) argu-
ment for accelerated mid-rise development in London and the US
Urban Land Institute proposals that US compact development put
greater emphasis on increasing densities at medium rise levels
along commercial corridors, suburban arterials and other transit-
supportive locations (ULI, 2012). Achievement of policy and pro-
gram alignment across multiple governmental entities, such as
neighbouring local councils and various agencies of the state or
provincial government, is usually an important element in suc-
cessful delivery of such inner/middle ring infill.
The Cambie Corridor in Vancouver is a good example of this
increasing interest in lifting densities through medium rise devel-
opment. The new 19 km Canada Line runs underneath Cambie
Street for much of its length in Vancouver. The improved accessi-
bility created in the corridor by the Canada Line provides an op-
portunity for higher density development along the corridor, which
will emphasise mid-rise building forms with higher densities at
some of the most accessible locations. The principles guiding
corridor development reflect integrated land use/transport plan-
ning but go further, reflecting the pursuit of triple bottom line
outcomes (City of Vancouver, 2011):
1. Provide land use that optimizes the investment in transit
2. Provide a complete community
3. Create a walkable and cycleable corridor of neighbourhoods
seamlessly linked to public transit
4. Focus intensity and community activity at stations and other
areas with strategic opportunities for sustainability, renewable
energy and public amenity
5. Provide a range of housing choices and affordability
6. Balance city-wide and regional goals with the community and
its context
7. Ensure job space and diversity.
The focus on providing complete communities and affordable
housing opportunities is important, since many examples of transit
oriented development fail in these areas (Robert Cervero, pers.
comm.). Land use transport integration can thus be seen as a
necessary but not sufficient requirement for achieving cities that
meet triple bottom line goals.
3. Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Strategy (MPS) 2012e13
3.1. Context
The concentration of people in cities increases productivity and
liveability, through what economists call ‘agglomeration effects’ in
production and consumption (Graham & Melo, 2011; Melo,
Graham, & Noland, 2009; Rosenthal & Strange, 2003). Relative
 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
output increases in knowledge-intensive industries, many of which
tend to concentrate in Central Business Districts and other urban
hubs (e.g. around universities), are typically highest.
There is a trade-off in city size between agglomeration benefits
and the increasing external costs of (for example) traffic congestion,
pollution and noise (liveability/sustainability concerns). Large cities
that are compact, enjoy good accessibility, matched by efficient
transport infrastructure, are among the most efficient urban set-
tlements (Cervero, 2001). These cities do not arise by chance but
require decades of careful management and guidance. Cervero
suggests that, beyond about 5e10 million, the increasing social
costs of size exceed the additional benefits.
Melbourne has been rated as the world's most liveable city for
the past three years by the Economist Intelligence Unit1. The city
currently has 4.2 million people and over 2 million jobs. Population
is projected to grow to around 6e7 million by 2050, on current
trends, requiring the creation of an additional ~1.5 million jobs.
Finding the right balance between economic productivity, main-
tenance of a high standard of liveability and achieving long term
sustainability (social and environmental) is a central strategic
challenge for the city as it grows beyond 5 million. For Melbourne,
the liveability dimension is critical, being a core component of
‘brand Melbourne’, helping the city to attract and retain the
talented people who are so important to economic performance in
the knowledge economy.
Melbourne currently faces major challenges in areas such as:
 creating sufficient jobs for its rapidly growing population. The
city has significant internationally trade-exposed sectors (such
as education, biomedical research, tourism, professional ser-
vices and manufacturing) but these sectors are under severe
competitive pressure from the resources boom in other states
(particularly Western Australia and Queensland), which has
placed upwards pressure on the Australian exchange rate;
 the high and growing costs of traffic congestion, partly a
reflection of decades of underinvestment in land transport
infrastructure and poor transport pricing systems. Melbourne's
congestion cost is estimated at about $3 billion, expected to
double by 2020 (BTRE 2007);
 public transport services that are straining under strong growth
pressures and a long period of underinvestment, to the point
where market research indicated that public transport and
traffic are the two biggest single issues that Melburnians think
the city faces (IPSOS Social Research Institute 2013);
 high and growing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with (for
example) Melbourne's land transport emissions estimated to be
over twice those of London on a per capita basis and Australians
more generally being among the world's highest per capita
emitters of GHGs (Stanley & Barrett, 2010);
 high house prices and associated supply shortages of new
properties for owner occupancy and properties for rental (NHSC
2010);
 the low density at which the city has developed, which has
contributed to the city's high ecological footprint and poses
problems of social exclusion for residents of the fast growing
outer suburbs, where infrastructure and services have tended to
lag behind population growth, productivity is growing more
slowly than in inner areas and job availability is under pressure,
as the regional economic geography changes;
 an ageing population, which puts increased pressure on a
declining proportion of people of workforce age to contribute to
1
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/28/travel/melbourne-most-livable-city/.
383
supporting the growing numbers of older people. Ways of sus-
taining increased labour force participation are important.
These problems are common to major cities in highly developed
economies in Australia and North America, for example, where the
major growth phase has corresponded with the dominance of
motor vehicle transport. The analysis of changing economic pro-
ductivity levels across different parts of the city, however, is a new
contribution from the Melbourne study, the current author being
unaware of any previous long term land use/transport strategy
undertaking such an analysis. This matter is explored further in
Section 3.3.
3.2. Vision and goals
Thredbo 12 discussions concluded that land use should lead the
integrated land use/transport strategy planning process, since it is
where most answers to the critical question, “What kind of city do
we want?” will be found. (Stanley & Smith, 2013). Cities that are
recognised leaders in this space, such as Vancouver, have followed
consistent approaches in this area, stretching back several decades.
An extensive community consultation and engagement pro-
gram was undertaken during late 2012 and early 2013 to consider
the high level vision and goals that should guide preparation of the
land use/transport strategy.
Vision: Melbourne will be a global city of opportunity and
choice.
The five valued outcomes (or goals) are as follows:
1.. a distinctive Melbourne: this recognises the importance of
Melbourne's distinctiveness to its much valued liveability. It
includes such qualities as an elegant public realm and civic
buildings, the notable Hoddle grid (central street system),
distinctive boulevards and high streets, expansive inner city
parks, gardens and recreational facilities, leafy suburbs, gar-
dens, vibrant street life, a wide range of nationally and
internationally significant events, shopping, cafes, food, cul-
tural and design strengths. Attitudinal research carried out
for the MPS suggests that Melburnians most value: the city's
parks and gardens; bars, restaurants and cafes; and, sporting
facilities (IPSOS Social Research Institute 2013);
2.. a globally connected and competitive city: this goal is
about ensuring the city's long term economic performance
will be such as to assure rising incomes for citizens in an
increasingly competitive environment;
3. social and economic participation: this goal has an equity
flavour and deals with ensuring that the benefits of growth
are widely shared. It sees economic and social participation
as being inextricably linked in terms of opportunity and
draws attention, for example, to the importance of dealing
with the problem of ‘the two Melbourne's’, the resource rich
inner areas and resource poor outer areas, as well as issues
raised by demographic change;
4. strong communities: the emphasis on communities reflects
the importance of attachment to community for individual
wellbeing (Stanley, Stanley, & Hensher, 2012);
5. environmental resilience: this goal recognises that a strong
environmental foundation is a vital ingredient in long term
economic and social well-being, as well as being of intrinsic
value.
These goals reflect local interpretation of the familiar triple
bottom line goals, nuanced with distinctiveness, which is a key
source of competitive advantage in the knowledge economy.
384 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
3.3. An employment focus
In line with most urban planning strategies for low density
developed cities in the Smart Growth Era (Chapin, 2012), Mel-
bourne's previous land use strategy (called Melbourne 2030 and
adopted a decade ago) was based on the idea of slowing low density
growth on the fringe of the city, encouraging a more compact urban
form and promoting growth in the central area and in six major
suburban nodes. The six nodes were primarily based on strength in
retail employment. Four of the six were in economically disad-
vantaged areas, their designation having more to do with social
equity than with economic efficiency. The market had other ideas,
resulting in slow growth in most of the designated urban nodes,
very strong growth in the central city and continued urban sprawl,
with over half (56 per cent) of new housing starts still being on the
fringe. This failure in planning for employment growth in major
nodes, in particular, led to a research focus on trying to better un-
derstand the key drivers of Melbourne's changing economic ge-
ography, to better support future employment growth and sharing
of employment opportunities across the city. This is a good example
of the application of causal theories in policy packaging (Givoni
et al. 2013)).
How future economic and employment activity in any major city
is structured has significant implications for the productivity of the
city. Australian Government (2012) reports several important
changes taking place in the economic geography of Australian cit-
ies, particularly a substantial decline in the share of manufacturing
in value added and an increasing concentration in growth taking
place in those industries that rely on high job densities to increase
their productivity. Fast-growth, transactions-based sectors, such as
finance and business services, insurance and law, tend to locate in
city centres. Individual firms and the wider economy both enjoy
benefits from this ‘agglomeration’ effect, including access to a
common pool of specialised labour and facilities, knowledge
sharing, enhanced specialisation and efficiencies in supply chains
(see, for example, Graham and Melo 2011; Melo et al. 2009).
Reflecting these trends, manufacturing employment in Mel-
bourne has fallen by well over 100,000 over the past 40 years but
there has been growth of over 150,000 jobs in the property and
business services sector. These employment changes have
increased relative employment opportunities in central/inner areas
and reduced them in outer areas, with a widening gap in the rate of
productivity growth between inner and outer suburban areas. The
trends are expected to continue and they have significant impli-
cations for economic opportunities in different parts of the city. In
consequence, they also have significant transport implications, as
discussed below. Retail trade and health and community services
have also both added over 100,000 jobs over this period, with much
of the growth in the health sector also being focussed in urban
clusters, including the central/inner area.
Employment in the City of Melbourne, which takes in the Cen-
tral Business District (CBD) and some surrounding urban growth
areas, has grown very quickly, from about 200,000 jobs in the late
1980s to near 500,000 in 2009. This rapid growth has the potential
to continue, because of the large land areas that are available for
urban renewal immediately adjacent to the existing central core.
Many of these jobs could be filled by future population growth in
the central area but a substantial proportion will still be filled by
commuters from other parts of the city and outside Melbourne.
Public transport currently caters for 65 per cent of journeys to
work in the Melbourne CBD and 60 per cent in the wider central
city. It will need to increase this share if central area employment is
to continue its strong growth, because of constraints to, and the
social costs of, providing additional road space. However, the city's
rail system is currently close to capacity in terms of serving the
central area. Rail capacity expansion is a necessary but not suffi-
cient condition for the creation of future agglomeration economies
from central area employment growth.
The changes that have taken place in Melbourne's economic
geography over the past couple of decades underline the impor-
tance of understanding how a city's employment opportunities, by
sector and location, might change in coming years and, in turn, how
land use and transport policies and programs can be used to in-
fluence those changes in ways that both (1) increase the produc-
tivity of the city and (2) enable the economic benefits of growth to
be shared. This detailed linking of city land use/transport strategy
to changing economic structure is, somewhat surprisingly, very
rare in the development of integrated land use/transport strategies
but is very important for an effective strategy aimed at the high
level social goals outlined in Section 3.2 above.
The drivers of spatial economic productivity in Melbourne were
analysed, examining growth of ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low tech’ ac-
tivities and their relationship to factors such as catchment size and
transport accessibility. This research empirically derived six ‘rules’
that need to be understood to maximise the economic productivity
of the greater city and share its economic benefits across the city
(NIEIR 2013). Interestingly, the Melbourne ‘rules’ have subse-
quently been confirmed in a similar (currently unpublished) study
by NIEIR for Sydney, which suggests wider applicability of the
findings.
Rule 1: The higher the share of high technology activity in a
region's gross regional product, the higher the level of total
productivity. Central Melbourne is the outlier for this rule. The
data suggests that a one per cent increase in the high technology
sector's share of regional economic output will lead to a 1.1 per
cent increase in productivity (agglomeration economies from
the high tech sector).
Rule 2: The level of economic activity in a local government area
(or LGA, of which there are 31 in Melbourne) is directly pro-
portional to the capital stock in the LGA, or at the very least
within the region's catchment. Central Melbourne is the bene-
ficiary of the largest allocation of capital.
Rule 3: For high technology industries, scale is important for
productivity. The higher the scale, the higher will be the pro-
ductivity. Central Melbourne has the highest scale and the
highest productivity. However, the relationship between scale
and productivity is relatively weak, such that the further
development of a small number of high technology clusters in
the middle suburbs (a polycentric city) is not likely to reduce
growth in established high technology clusters (provided
catchment size is managed).
Rule 4: Central Melbourne is a strategic driver of Greater Mel-
bourne's growth, especially in relation to high technology in-
dustries. Therefore, the greater the distance a region or node from
Central Melbourne, the lower will be the productivity of that
region's high technology industries. There is a sharp fall-off in the
productivity of high technology industries located more than
15e18 km from central Melbourne, suggesting that high end
knowledge clusters should be kept within this distance band.
Rule 5: The level of income received by a region's households
from work is determined by the economic activity generated in
the region's catchment, as determined by acceptable travel
times.
Rule 6: The greater the distance from Melbourne, the less will be
the high technology sector's share in total economic activity and
the lower the resident local GRP per working age population.
This research highlighted the productivity advantages of the
central area but also suggested that a small number of other high
 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
tech (knowledge-based) clusters could be supported across the city,
if the transport system provided adequate accessibility (including
linkages to the centre, which dominates high-tech) and provided
that these additional clusters were not located too far from the
centre (because of the role of catchment size in productivity). The
development of a couple of additional high-tech clusters in Mel-
bourne is important to reduce the risk that outer suburban resi-
dents will become increasingly distant from many high end
emerging employment opportunities. The research further sug-
gested that providing high quality access from outer areas to the
small number of knowledge-based employment clusters, and other
jobs-rich areas in the inner and middle suburbs, would probably be
a more effective strategy for improving employment opportunities
for outer area residents than seeking to encourage footloose jobs to
relocate from inner and middle suburbs to those outer areas (where
productivity losses would be expected).
In short, the economic geography of the city needs to evolve to
maximise the productivity benefits from clustering of high end
knowledge-based activities, while also ensuring that there is a
range of employment opportunities accessible to people across the
whole city. This economic clustering will be highly dependent on
the central city and a small number of other nationally significant
economic clusters, located within about 20 km from the central city
and primarily based on leading tertiary institutions and medical
facilities. The city currently has two such clusters which are oper-
ating most successfully, one based on University of Melbourne on
the central city fringe and the other based around Monash Uni-
versity/Monash Medical Centre and the Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research Organisation (about 20 km to the south-
east of the centre). The current major urban growth corridors (to
the north and west) lack such clusters but have potential oppor-
tunities, one based on an existing university/medical complex and
the other based on a major emerging rail hub. Supporting the future
development of key economic knowledge-based clusters at these
two locations is a key part of the strategy. Delivering an integrated
transport network that supports clustering and employment
accessibility is critical to achievement.
These conclusions are relevant to all Australian major cities,
where the number of non-CBD knowledge-based clusters that
appear likely to be self-sustaining is probably of the order of one
per million population. Research on how far this conclusion can be
extended to cities in North America, which have much in common
with Australian cities, would be very valuable.
3.4. Land use development directions having major transport
implications for moving people2
This economic overview has highlighted the Melbourne
Metropolitan Planning Strategy's intention to pursue growth in the
knowledge economy, with the associated realisation of agglomer-
ation (productivity) economies, and to do this by focussing on the
central/inner city and a small number of significant knowledge-
based economic clusters. Other urban activity centres, based
more on retail and other population serving functions and key in-
dustrial areas, are also important elements in the future economic
shape of the city (as in most cities' long term land use/transport
strategies) for spreading economic opportunities, reducing the
need to travel and strengthening communities.
2
Freight is also very important for Melbourne but beyond the scope of the
present paper. Strengthening the city's competitive advantages in freight and lo-
gistics, with implications for key gateways, corridors and nodes, provides another
important focus of the land use/transport strategy but is not considered further in
this paper.
385
Structural economic changes also mean that new employment
opportunities, beyond those that are population-serving, become
relatively harder to generate in the city's fast growing outer sub-
urbs, which have also been difficult to service adequately for social
and community infrastructure/services. Residents in these growth
areas are at risk of social exclusion. As a result, the land use strategy
needs to slow the rate of population growth on the fringe, reducing
the proportion of new dwellings that are built in this area from just
over half (currently 56 per cent) to probably about 30 per cent over
the 2013e2050 period. The increase in the proportion of new
dwellings that are located in the existing urban area (to ~70 per
cent) will deliver a more compact urban form, with Transit Ori-
ented Development being the favoured growth strategy (as it is for
many major cities).
Melbourne's ‘forgotten’ middle suburbs currently contain about
sixty per cent of the city's population and half its jobs. Two
important foci of the land use strategy, to help achieve a much
higher rate of infill, are (1) supporting growth of urban activity
nodes across the city and (2) an acceleration of precinct level urban
renewal, particularly to ‘unlock capacity’ in the middle suburbs
(where there has been a loss of many manufacturing jobs). A key
challenge in the latter regard is reducing the cost of family dwell-
ings in the middle suburbs, which are currently about $100,000 (or
about 20 per cent) more costly than new dwellings on the fringe,
for a smaller amount of real estate. Unless this affordability prob-
lem is solved, targets for a higher proportion of development to
happen in the existing urban area will be very difficult to meet.
From an accessibility perspective, the provision of improved
transport opportunities around the city's middle and outer suburbs
is very important to realising more intensive employment and
residential development in these locations. For those residents who
choose to live in the outer and fringe suburbs, providing better
access to the jobs-rich middle and inner suburbs will also help to
improve housing affordability (NIEIR 2010).
The outcome/goal focus on building ‘strong communities’ draws
attention to the neighbourhood level in terms of land use/transport
strategy, an area where most people live most of their lives but into
which integrated land use/transport strategies seldom venture. A
central idea of the Melbourne strategy, building on strategies from
places like Portland Oregon and pioneers like Jane Jacobs (1961) is
the idea of a ‘20 Minute City’, which reflects the aspiration that
people should be able to undertake most (but not all) of the ac-
tivities they need for a good life within about 20 min by foot, cycle
or public transport from their home. This idea underlines the
important role of neighbourhood level accessibility, in terms of
both increasing the range of activities/opportunities that are
available in a local neighbourhood (e.g. through promoting mixed
use activity centres and greater shared use of community facilities)
and improving the mobility opportunities that are available within
neighbourhoods, for realization of the 20 min target. Clustering is
thus also being pursued at neighbourhood level, in the expectation
that this will generate economic and social synergies. Effective
delivery of the ‘20 Minute City’ will help to reduce the distances
people need to travel to accomplish their daily activities, with flow-
on benefits in areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, air quality,
road safety and traffic congestion.
3.5. Transport directions
3.5.1. ‘Spatially blind’ directions
There are two main groups of transport policy and program
directions that need to be embedded in an integrated use/transport
strategy. One group is ‘spatially blind’; the other has a strong spatial
focus. The main ‘spatially blind’ policy directions are common to
cities in most parts of the world:
386 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
 improve the efficiency with which transport infrastructure and
services are delivered and used, which should include (for
example) generic measures to reduce the costs of congestion
and reform the way transport is priced, to recognize external
costs. Draft PlanMelbourne emphasizes the importance of
improving efficient resource use but avoids the politically
difficult area of road pricing reform;
 substantially increase the share of travel that is undertaken by
public transport, walking and cycling, because this will produce
lower economic, social and environmental costs than a more
motor vehicle centred policy direction. Draft PlanMelbourne has
no specific targets in this area and does not assess its impact on
mode splits;
 provide people with travel choices, for both local and trunk
movements, irrespective of their personal circumstances (e.g.,
financial and physical capacities), to enhance social inclusion,
health and wellbeing (Stanley et al. 2012). The plan generally
supports this intent but lacks specifics for achievement;
 reduce the environmental impact of travel, particularly green-
house gas emissions. This area is a weak part of the Melbourne
strategy from a transport perspective, the prevailing State
Government philosophy being that the national government is
primarily responsible for climate change mitigation, with the
state role being mainly about adaptation. The strategy is thus
silent about matters such as vehicle GHG emissions targets,
which are seen as matters for other policy arenas.
3.5.2. Spatial directions
The transport policy directions with a strong spatial focus need
to support achievement of the land use directions summarised in
Section 4. The following discussion focuses on transport policy
(people movement) directions that will support key elements of
the desired land use directions. These are relevant to all Australian
capital cities, in varying degree, and will also be relevant to most
other large, low density cities with strong central business districts
in developed economies. The discussion highlights strengths and
weaknesses in the directions included in the draft PlanMelbourne.
3.5.2.1. Servicing the central/inner area. Ensuring that adequate
trunk public transport capacity is available to facilitate growth in
the central/inner city, and to support movement around this area is
critical for sustaining the agglomeration economies and high pro-
ductivity employment opportunities generated therein. For a city of
Melbourne's size, this primarily means ensuring that there is suf-
ficient trunk rail capacity to cater for mass movements at a satis-
factory service level, complemented by high quality bus services
(with bus priority treatments) in corridors that lack rail, until such
time as rail becomes viable. Smaller capital cities, such as Brisbane,
for example, have used Bus Rapid Transit to assist in this role. This
transport policy direction also means ensuring that tram, walking
and cycling opportunities are provided at a level that supports
sufficient use by central/inner urban residents and by others trav-
elling to this area. This will also support greater dwelling density in
the centre. Draft PlanMelbourne proposes a major expansion in the
city's rail system to meet this need and supports the other transport
improvements in general terms.
Reducing urban traffic congestion levels and sustaining Mel-
bourne's competitive advantage in freight and logistics has led to
strong State Government support for a major East-West road tun-
nel, crossing the rivers that bisect the inner area. The project is
included in PlanMelbourne but no detailed cost-benefit evaluation
of this $15-17 billion project has been made publicly available.
Evaluation by the Federal Government's infrastructure advisory
body, Infrastructure Australia, suggests that the direct user benefits
are insufficient to justify the high project cost. The State Govern-
ment argues that the addition of wider economic benefits lifts the
benefit cost ratio from 0.8 to 1.4, a very large relative increase
(compared to projects like London's CrossRail). Given the cost of
this project and the community opposition it has aroused, its eco-
nomics deserve more public scrutiny. If such a major new road is
ultimately built, the emphasis should be firmly on the bypass
function and on improving the operation of road-based public
transport. Direct access/egress to/from the central city should not
be available in close proximity, particularly because of the adverse
impact this would have on liveability in the inner/central areas.
While the central area is critical for city economic performance,
it is not the major location for jobs, residences or most activities in
Melbourne or in any other major Australian city. Its importance
should not, therefore, be overemphasised within the context of the
total transport budget. Inevitably, however, the high community
and political profile of the central area has meant that initiatives
have tended to be framed to support this area, in excess of its
relative importance to the overall city and its functioning.
3.5.2.2. Middle and outer suburbs. Accelerating the rate of infill
development that takes place in cities like Melbourne will depend
significantly on improved accessibility of key locations (e.g. na-
tionally significant economic and innovation clusters, key service
centres and urban renewal areas). A key requirement in this regard
is ensuring high quality (mainly arterial) road capacity exists to
support circumferential operation of road-based PT systems (and
freight movement) in middle and outer suburban areas, crossing
radial rail lines (where Melbourne is facing a huge future problem
with rail level crossing abolition) and joining up activity centres.
This will help to unlock the capacity of the middle suburbs to cater
for jobs and population growth. The frequency of trunk PT services
needs to be increased along key circumferential corridors and high
quality opportunities for walking/cycling need to be provided
within and to/from activity centres, to reinforce the desired urban
development directions. This should help to increase the PT/walk/
cycle mode share for work and non-work journeys, most of which
are not to the CBD but are within home LGA or to a neighbouring
LGA.
Target PT service frequencies on the trunk circumferential
middle-outer corridors in a city of Melbourne's size and density
need to be 15 min or better for most service hours (which should be
from about 5.00am to midnight in most cases, with a lesser fre-
quency being acceptable late in this operating span). Alignment of
frequencies between local and trunk PT services is important to
maximise patronage potential, such that if rail is operating on
15 min headways, connecting buses should operate on a multiple of
15 min, with good quality interchanges.
A high priority should also attach to walkability/cyclability of
activity centres, for both regional and local centres, to support
greater use of more sustainable travel modes and also assist
development of more compact settlement forms.
Given the difficulty of attracting additional ‘footloose’ jobs to
outer growth suburbs, providing high quality trunk PT services
(which will be a mixture of rail and bus in Melbourne) between
these suburbs and proximate jobs-rich areas, and ensuring that
road capacity is sufficient to meet these bus service needs (if rail is
not available), is a further priority for middle/outer suburban
transport. In most cases this will mean improving trunk PT service
between outer suburbs and middle suburbs, where jobs are more
readily available, while continuing to increase the availability of
local (non-transport) services and of jobs (mainly population
serving) in growing outer suburbs, to reduce the need to travel.
As new suburbs are built in outer suburbs, provision of a base
public transport network should be aligned with rollout of
 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
development, as far as possible, rather than lagging behind popu-
lation growth. These services should provide people with an option
for both (1) moving around their local neighbourhood and (2)
accessing trunk services that move them to/from their local
neighbourhood. Lagged fringe area PT service development simply
leads to higher car ownership, often putting severe pressure on
household budgets among the lower income, younger families who
typically live in these areas (what Currie and Delbosc (2011) call
‘forced car ownership’). Stanley et al. (2012) have shown the high
monetary value of these services in terms of supporting social
inclusion.
Service levels for movement ‘around the neighbourhood’ will
typically be less than on trunk routes, a key question being ‘How
much less?’ This is an area of some debate in many jurisdictions in
Australia and elsewhere at present. One group of transport policy
advisers is seeking to promote improved direct trunk PT fre-
quencies, with a down grading of local bus services (to essentially
cater only for mobility impaired people), expecting people to walk
increased distances to the more direct services to/from the local
neighbourhood. This is a common policy direction for urban mass
transit at present. Other policy advisers, the current author
included, recognize the value of more direct trunk services oper-
ating with improved frequencies but also seek to sustain a decent
local PT service, on grounds of supporting social inclusion and the
achievement of the 20 Minute City. The latter services need to
provide coverage rather than speed. This line of thinking recognizes
the market for local PT as being wider than just mobility-impaired
people and including, for example, young children with heavy bags,
parents with young children and people more generally who may
not have a car or may not wish to drive. Alternative delivery models
should be tested for local public transport, to improve service
economics and build on community support.
Draft PlanMelbourne includes most of the policy directions
outlined in this section in general terms but, apart from the State
Government's favoured major projects, there is little real detail.
Some specific arterial road upgrading projects and rail improve-
ments are indicated, as is the very important removal of some rail
level crossings. However, there is no specific indication of what will
be done to improve operation of the tram and bus networks,
beyond vague statements such as ‘improve’. In particular, there is
no detailed and linked 5e10 year funded plan that sets out the
specific initiatives that will be implemented in the short to medium
term, to achieve such objectives as accelerating the rate of infill in
transit friendly locations, improving movement around the middle
suburbs, better connecting the outer suburbs to jobs-rich areas and
building stronger communities.
The distinct impression is that a pre-selected set of favoured
major projects, derived as responses to traditionally conceived
transport problems such as dealing with congestion at the ends of
freeways, has been ‘imposed’ on a land use strategy. In most cases
the major projects fit the land use strategy but some can be con-
tested in this regard, particularly the proposed inner road tunnel.
Perhaps more importantly, the concentration on major projects and
neglect of smaller systemic transport improvements to support
land use goals in middle and outer suburbs is likely to mean that
the plan will not meet its goals as it might.
The Melbourne case study missed an important opportunity to
use community engagement to explore alternative major land/use
transport directions. Stage three in the Givoni et al. (2013) heuristic
framework for policy packaging is ‘dynamic ex ante appraisal and
packaging’. A good policy packaging process is not linear; it iterates
between objectives and plan specifics, using the appraisal process
to sharpen trade-offs between objectives and identify superior
ways to achieve goals. Draft PlanMelbourne, published in October
2013 after the Ministerial Advisory Committee had provided its
387
advice, would have benefited from the presentation of some major
option alternatives, drawing on findings from the extensive com-
munity consultation process and seeking further community
engagement around these options. This would have allowed (for
example) highly contested transport projects to be included/
excluded, alternative approaches to densification to be tested and
financing/funding opportunities to be explored. This did not
happen, which is likely to reduce the legitimacy of the final plan.
4. Strengths, weaknesses and major lessons
This paper has given some important examples of how land use
and transport should be integrated in urban strategic planning,
indicating the types of transport initiatives that are likely to emerge
from this process. Those initiatives will include some ‘big projects’,
often focused on serving access needs to/from or around the central
city area of major cities. Importantly, however, an integrated
approach should draw attention to a much wider urban canvas.
The paper highlights five things in particular, based on the
Melbourne experience, which seem likely to be important for
successful development and implementation of integrated land
use/transport strategies for large, low density developed cities with
strong central areas:
1. the central area is very important for a productive city and re-
quires good public transport accessibility. However, the central
area does not account for the majority of jobs or residences.
While it is economically very important, the rest of the city is
usually more so in total and the needs of these other parts of the
city are therefore also important. They should not be dominated
by the needs of the centre;
2. structural economic changes are profoundly affecting the eco-
nomic geography of cities and should be clearly understood in
framing integrated land use/transport strategies with triple
bottom line sustainability goals. The very good work done on
this question was probably the major contribution to knowledge
from the Melbourne study. These structural economic changes
are increasing the importance of the central city but also, in
Melbourne's case, parts of the ‘forgotten middle suburbs’, as
places for future employment growth, population growth and
urban renewal. Accessibility improvement is critical in enabling
these middle suburban areas to play a greater role and, from a
transport perspective, such accessibility improvement is more
about systemic and programmatic changes in arterial roads and
bus services, walking and cycling to support more compact ur-
ban form than about high end ‘congestion busting’ freeways or
even rail upgrades;
3. a strategic approach to land use/transport integration should
look both regionally and locally, at the way a neighbourhood
functions. It is unusual to see both done in strategic land use/
transport studies (which tend to be top down) but very impor-
tant in terms of citizens' wellbeing. This draws attention to the
role of local public transport, other low cost options and alter-
native delivery models, while retaining an eye on the need for
integration of local and trunk services;
4. long term integrated land use/transport strategies should be
intimately linked to (integrated with) short to medium term
(5e10 year) implementation plans, that specify the particular
project initiatives intended to be to be undertaken, financing/
funding plans and governance arrangements for delivery.3 This
will add substance to the inevitably generic nature of long term
3
Space has precluded consideration of governance arrangements in the present
paper.
388 J.K. Stanley / Research in Transportation Economics 48 (2014) 381e388
strategies and help foster community engagement in the plan
development and review process;
5. in preparing both long term and short to medium term strate-
gies/plans, community engagement should be seen as both a
right of communities and a practical way of improving content
and prospects for implementation. The author's experience
from the Melbourne study is that communities are far more
prepared for change than their politicians or bureaucrats
believe. Ignoring such opportunities only diminishes the pros-
pects of achieving the kinds of future cities that will meet the
goals set out in our strategies and plans.
Two important areas for future research have emerged from the
Melbourne strategy: (1) investigation of alternative delivery
models for local PT; and (2) the effectiveness of improved transport
opportunities on the growth and productivity of activity centres,
particularly those centres that are targeting expansion of
knowledge-intensive economic activity. There is a dearth of infor-
mation on how transport service quality affects growth of non-
central clusters in polycentric cities and on the roles that PT can
play in promoting such growth. These are areas for future Thredbo
discussions on sustainable public transport.
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