Confusing Access and Mobility

18 April 2010 - 7:00am

Transportation planner Jarrett Walker, on why transportation planners can't stop applying freeway concepts to transit and the important difference between access and mobility.

With a nod to Todd Litman, Walker explains that "mobility is how far you can go, while access is how many desirable things you can do. You can improve your access, but not your mobility, by moving closer to work, or moving in with your romantic partner. In this urbanist formulation, access can be improved through by putting desirable things closer together -- a process that we all consider when we decide where to live, and which urban designers do in the aggregate when they design or redesign communities in response to the demands that our individual decisions have generated."

Source: Human Transit, April 16, 2010
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"This ends up being, to be sure, a second best alternative, but it's better than the third best alternative, which is to do nothing." -- Jerold Kayden