11 research outputs found
Integrating Life-cycle Environmental and Economic Assessment with Transportation and Land Use Planning
The environmental
outcomes of urban form changes should couple
life-cycle and behavioral assessment methods to better understand
urban sustainability policy outcomes. Using Phoenix, Arizona light
rail as a case study, an integrated transportation and land use life-cycle
assessment (ITLU-LCA) framework is developed to assess the changes
to energy consumption and air emissions from transit-oriented neighborhood
designs. Residential travel, commercial travel, and building energy
use are included and the framework integrates household behavior change
assessment to explore the environmental and economic outcomes of policies
that affect infrastructure. The results show that upfront environmental
and economic investments are needed (through more energy-intense building
materials for high-density structures) to produce long run benefits
in reduced building energy use and automobile travel. The annualized
life-cycle benefits of transit-oriented developments in Phoenix can
range from 1.7 to 230 Gg CO<sub>2</sub>e depending on the aggressiveness
of residential density. Midpoint impact stressors for respiratory
effects and photochemical smog formation are also assessed and can
be reduced by 1.2–170 Mg PM<sub>10</sub>e and 41–5200
Mg O<sub>3</sub>e annually. These benefits will come at an additional
construction cost of up to 16–29 and household cost savings