Abstract
Given the importance of transportation planning and the heavy investment in transportation made in metropolitan regions across the country, there is insufficient analysis of the distribution of investments and transportation project impacts. Methods of analysis in the academic arena and in practice by metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are not adequate to describe the distribution of impacts or the cumulative nature of these impacts on local populations across a region. Although transportation planners evaluate specific project benefits and burdens and perform some regional distribution analyses, a thorough and scientific analysis of the impacts throughout a region is not currently performed. The project described here offers new methods for the evaluation of transportation project impacts by combining geographic information system practices with spatial analysis techniques to bring additional analytic capabilities to the process. Although this project does not address all of the shortcomings of the current methods, the analysis is a significant improvement over the existing descriptive methods used by MPOs. This project adds to the understanding of the distribution of transportation project impacts by demonstrating a flexible method of analysis of the cumulative impacts of transportation policies on communities over time.
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