Another Look at the 5Ds: Insights from a Cincinnati Area based GPS Survey

Presented on March 8, 2013 from 12:35 pm-2:00 pm in the Architecture East Building, Room 217 on the Georgia Tech campus.Dr. Sweta Byahut is an Assistant Professor in Planning at Auburn University. Dr. Byahut's teaching and research interests include sustainable land use and transportation, planning for climate protection, urban environment and growth management. Prior to joining full-time at Auburn University, she was an Instructor at the University of Cincinnati and taught courses on urban spatial structure, environmental issues and policy, and urbanization issues in developing countries. Her doctoral research examined the influence of land use characteristics such as density, diversity, neighborhood design, transit accessibility, and regional location on household car travel and their impact on carbon dioxide emissions in the Greater Cincinnati region. Prior to starting work on her PhD in 2007, Sweta has 10 years of professional planning experience as an urban planner in India in consulting and applied research in the areas of planning legislation and development regulation (for Gujarat state and Delhi), urban revitalization (for inner cities of Ahmedabad and Surat), comprehensive/master plans (for cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar), regional development plan (for the Dahej-Vagra coastal region), post-earthquake reconstruction planning (for the historic city of Bhuj), as well as various policy matters. While in India she also managed two grants: a European Union - India Small Projects Facility grant in 2005 for applied research and capacity building that she conceptualized, wrote, managed, and coordinated with local, state government, and British institutional partners, and theProVention Applied Research Grant for Young Professionals in 2005 for case studies on integrating disaster mitigation in urban planning practice in Indian cities.Runtime: 57:05 minutesSweta Byahut will present her research design and discuss the outcomes of her recently completed dissertation research. In her research she explores the land use – transportation – environmental nexus in Hamilton County, OH that includes the city of Cincinnati. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from household travel are a major contributor to climate change, generating up to 65% of total transportation CO2 emissions in the US. Urban and regional planners have long been exploring the feasibility of mixed use as a potential climate mitigation tool, with the belief that there is a significant link between different aspects of the built environment and the vehicle miles traveled (VMT). However, there are concerns that the link between built form and land use is not strong enough due to lack of enough convincing studies and often conflicting evidence. In her research she analyzes the impact of land use diversity and other land use characteristics on household travel. She developed an improved entropy-based measure of land use diversity, and measures for building density, street and intersection density, distance to transit, and regional accessibility using advanced GIS tools with parcel level land use data, and estimated household travel from the GPS-based Greater Cincinnati Household Travel Survey 2009-10. Her research informs policy makers on the feasibility of using land use diversity and other land use characteristics for reducing household travel related emissions. The audience will develop a better understanding of the relationship between different land use characteristics and household travel at a regional scale, the application of advanced GIS tools in land use metrics, and the potential for travel demand management through compact and mixed use development