- Slow-Moving Traffic and the Built-Environmental Design    1032 kb by    Zhang, Ming & Sha, Siyun (Sarah) & Wang, Guoen | zhangming@whu.edu.cn    Short Outline China's urban expansion is evident with misunderstanding and mistreatment of slow-moving transport (SMT) by citizens, professionals and policies. The paper addresses the issues by recommending integration of SMT / built-environmental design. Abstract In the fast growing, rapidly motorizing Chinese cities, misunderstanding of slow-moving transport (SMT, referring mainly to walking and biking) is evident in three aspects. First, conceptually, SMT is believed to go with the lower income. Second, behaviorally, many drive like walking/biking as behavioral adjustment to motorization lags behind income growth. Third, practically, there have been slow responses from the professionals and policy makers to the needs of understanding SMT in the motorization age. The paper first describes the characteristics of SMT in the framework of contemporary travel behavioral analysis. It highlights that people¡¯s travel choice decision pertaining to SMT in the motorization age differs significantly from that in the non-motorization age (e.g., in the 1970¡¯s and earlier in China). For SMT to compete with cars, built-environmental design plays a critical role. The paper then illustrates the importance of the built environment to SMT with empirical evidence reported in the literature from China and other countries. Next, it explores the role of planning standards and codes in the making of SMT-unfriendly built environment throughout China's urban expansion in the last three decades. Finally, the paper recommends integrated SMT-urban design by citing best practice examples. The paper concludes by making recommendations for policy changes and reform of current Chinese planning standards and codes. Keywords slow-moving transport, built environment, travel demand and trip making, pedestrian network, urban planning and design Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper