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This book addresses the role of railways in urban development. Our central aim is to inquire into how the renaissance of railways since the end of the 20th century (especially the development of high-speed rail and light rail links) will affect European cities. The analyses are carried out with special attention given to the broader institutional environment of the railway system, including the shift toward privatised railway companies, internationalisation, the occurrence of market and government failures in land markets, and private-public partnerships in the development of railway station areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation and urban land use maintain a complex, symbiotic relationship. Transportation affects land use by improving accessibility to urban functions, and the built environment affects travel through its distribution and density. It is important to explore these dynamics in order to understand the effects that determine urban and metropolitan daily travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a microeconomic framework for tracing the impact of urban rail transit on the residential real estate market. It presents an urban polycentric model that is quite simple, yet it is complex enough to handle automobile traffic congestion as well as transit and park-and-ride. The model is derived from a long line of microeconomic monocentric urban models. The model is estimable, but not empirically estimated here; instead, it is run as a spreadsheet simulation with artificial parameter values. Results are computed and shown graphically and geographically; they support the claim that transit introduction is likely to raise real estate values, but are conditional with regard to instigating inner city redevelopment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

System analysis techniques have long been used to interpret the transport system behaviour and the performance of its components. More recently, increasing attention has been given to the relationships between the transport system and the global system to which it belongs (Meyer and Miller 2001). The study of these relationships is central to the transportation system analysis and to the definition of integrated transport/land use planning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the second half of the 19th century, railways were the dominant transport mode, but in the 20th century the dynamism of the railway began to lose its momentum. Presently, car and truck have become the leading modes for passenger and freight transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several new or upgraded railway lines, primarily for regional or medium distance travel at high speed, have been opened in Sweden since the 1990s. The investment decisions were based on the expected societal benefits of increased accessibility. It was thought that it might be possible to turn regional imbalances, for example in the Stockholm-Mälaren region, into regional development through high-speed train commuting, and unemployment might thus decrease. However, some economists and organisations, for various reasons, have questioned the whole idea of constructing new railways and their possible effects on the travel market and regional development. Therefore, in order to evaluate the effects of the radical change in train service supply, a before and after study was conducted on the new Svealand line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessibility is an important determinant of property values. Property is broadly defined in urban economics as an estate ranging from a vacant piece of land to an area occupied by all sorts of buildings: residential, commercial, industrial, etc. (Brigham 1965). Several studies have been conducted on the theme of accessibility and property values. Different modes of transport can contribute to the accessibility level a property enjoys. In this regard, accessibility related to highways (freeways) and railways is frequently studied, in which accessibility is explained primarily in reference to the nodes or outlets across the line of the transportation network. Different methodological approaches have been employed to account for accessibility to highway entry/exit points and railway stations. However, the general understanding about accessibility in the literature relates to the fact that the value of accessibility is capitalised on the value of property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of high-speed rail in the Netherlands is accompanied by large redevelopment projects for several station areas; one such redevelopment site is the Amsterdam South axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway stations often function as a nexus of various activities, such as transport, shopping and working. Larger stations especially act as nodes for several transport modes, including heavy rail, light rail and city bus transport. Therefore, it is precisely due to their strategic and accessible locations that specific railway stations increasingly become more attractive for the location of firms. Because station areas potentially act as magnets for service sector firms (particularly) and in combination with increased traffic density, these areas also attract many smaller facilitative firms, such as shops, childcare centres, and restaurants. This situation leads to a variety of (Marshallian) localised external economies of scale; examples of railway stations that have induced such economies of scale are the high-speed railway station in Lille, Gare Montparnasse in Paris, Broadgate in London, Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin, and the train-metro-tram station Zuidas in Amsterdam. At present, the area around the latter is witnessing a rapid transformation towards a completely new central business district (CBD) (for more details, see Rodenburg 2005). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of railway station areas has for several years been an important issue on the Dutch spatial policy agenda. National and local governments have been financially supporting the development of the areas around the stations of the new High-Speed Rail, the railway connection from Amsterdam to France and Germany. The projects in question are designed to create a multifunctional land use environment in which synergy effects of the combination of the transport nodes with business and residential land uses can arise.1 This chapter evaluates the welfare effects of probably the most ambitious of these projects, that which involves urban construction and infrastructural investment in the Amsterdam South Axis area. In this project the transport infrastructure on both sides of the railway station Amsterdam South/WTC is to be brought underground, thus creating extra space for high quality urban construction. The expectation is that this change in the pattern of land use in the South Axis will have positive effects on the utility of residents and productivity of companies in the area, and subsequently on the value of real estate there.2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of high-speed trains in the Netherlands has led to the design of the so-called New Key Projects (Nieuwe Sleutelprojecten, NSPs) whose aim is to capitalise on the synergy effects that may exist between railway network improvements and urban redevelopment by applying the compact city concept. In this chapter the largest of such New Key Projects, the South Axis project, takes a central position as a case study; it constitutes a massive investment in housing, offices and infrastructure in the southern district of Amsterdam. It is believed that a variety of effects are associated with these investments. The Dutch government and the Municipality of Amsterdam, for example, proposed these investments in railway infrastructure in order to reduce car mobility and promote more environmentally friendly transport modalities (see also Newman and Kenworthy 1989a; 1989b; Newman 1992). Furthermore, knowledge-based business services may benefit from economies of scale or scope by clustering around such clients as large financial institutions or their competitors. Finally, by having the goal of compact land use at high densities, open space and farmland at this location may be protected against ongoing urbanisation (De Roo and Miller 2000). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments have traditionally had a major impact on railway systems, at least in so far as the infrastructure is concerned, classical reasons being network externalities and the large fixed costs, including its impact on tariffs that would strongly exceed marginal costs. The latter means that welfare maximising tariffs would lead to losses for the railway operators. Moreover, in several countries rail services have been subsidised for over 40 years in order to increase their competitive status in comparison to the car. Environmental externalities are an additional reason for government involvement: e.g. national, regional and local authorities decide on the ‘best' route for a new line to be constructed in order to mitigate impacts on the local environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Railway stations have a dual character, as they are nodes in transportation networks as well as places in the city (see chapter 3). A combination of accessibility and potential as a concentrated area of urban activity therefore makes station areas favoured locations for the development of structuring nodes in the network city (Bertolini and Dijst 2000 p. 41). With reference to Castells (1989), Bertolini (1996 p. 332) subsequently pinpoints the tensions this combination embodies: "On one hand, stations offer a (potential) connection to several material and immaterial flows that create value in the current ‘informational' mode of development. Stations are (or may become) important nodes in both transport and non-transport (e.g. business, consumption) networks. The connection to ever denser, faster and further reaching transportation systems, as well as the development there of office complexes and shopping centres are materialisations of this network dimension of station areas. On the other hand, stations identify a ‘place', a both permanently and temporarily inhabited area of the city, a dense and diverse conglomeration of uses and forms accumulated through time, that may or may not share in the life of the node. The mixture of housing, small business premises and informal public spaces of the station's neighbourhood are an expression of this local dimension." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not only is railway station redevelopment related to urban dynamics, it is also a dynamic process in itself. The wave of investments in new high-speed train tracks and (new or upgraded) stations sweeping through Western Europe over the last decades has led to numerous questions regarding the content of these major urban investments and the processes used to decide upon them. We investigate this issue exactly at this borderline. We define two important policy challenges for railway station (area) development as i.) the creation of integrated spaces: a content dimension related to the actual physical object of the station and station areas and its use, and ii.) the organisation of collective action in a situation of fragmentation: a process dimension related to decision-making and institutional aspects of station redevelopment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many HST station areas take shape as what we may call international business centres: locations that aim to attract the offices of, in particular, internationally-oriented producer services. Euralille, for example, was developed explicitly as a European Business Centre; in Amsterdam, international banks did in effect initiate the development of the South Axis before local authorities joined in. The HST may facilitate the development of an international business centre mainly for two reasons. First, it provides additional transport facilities, which are important as knowledge-intensive activities still very much depend on face-to-face contacts. Second, it provides an image that suits international business. Neither is indispensable: exemplary centres of international business such as La Défense or Canary Wharf can do without. But for cities of a somewhat smaller calibre, the HST is considered a must-have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connection to the High-Speed-Train (HST) network is, for many cities, a momentous occasion towards redeveloping their station areas. Many local authorities have drawn up ambitious plans for the redevelopment of the zones at and around HST nodes. The expectation is that these redevelopments will enhance the accessibility and economic attractiveness of metropolitan centres, and will attract new urban activities and residents (Bonnafous 1987; Plassard 1991). To the actors involved, the advent of the HST can be an opportunity to renew and strengthen the urban economy, to change the modal split in favour of more environmental-friendly modalities, and improve the image of the metropolitan centre and its urban region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cities around the world, railway stations are increasingly the focus of integrated transport and land use development efforts, whether under the label ‘Transit Oriented Development' (TOD) as in North America, or more plainly, as (re)development of and around railway stations as in Europe and elsewhere (Bertolini and Spit 1998; Cervero 1998, 2004; Van den Berg and Pol 1998; Dittmar and Ohland 2004; Dunphy et al. 2005). A combination of heterogeneous, interrelated factors converge in determining this upsurge of station area-related urban projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both urban planning and infrastructure development are highly path-dependent: it is difficult to begin with a clean slate in and around a city unless there has been an earthquake, flood or warfare. Towns always have to adapt their development to givens such as landscape, nature areas, contours, the courses of rivers, lakes and seas, heritage sites, and historic settlement patterns. In many cases the pattern of agricultural land division is reflected in the layout of urban building (Amsterdam is a well-known example). A major advantage of this path-dependency is that each town is unique and has its own special cultural and landscape qualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]