The role of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in the development of proximity in rural urban region. Methodological considerations applied to the periphery of Ile-de-France.
Résumé
In a context of climate emergency, public authorities are faced with a dilemma: how to regulate
mobility without increasing social inequalities and insuring access to urban amenities, especially
for the poorest? A reflection on planning models favoring access to amenities while limiting the
need to travel is more necessary than ever, especially in rural urban regions. We propose to
investigate the ability of a Transit Oriented Development (TOD)-inspired model (Calthorpe, 1993)
to moderate mobility dependency in rural urban areas. We define mobility dependency as the
harm suffered by low mobile people or people who are highly constrained in their daily mobility
(Fol and Gallez, 2017). In a context where public, social and housing politics keep increasing the
need of mobility; we assume that a TOD model could contribute to a “multi-scale accessibility”
favoring both access to local and distant amenities, while developing a more inclusive proximity.
In peri-urban region, proximity can play a salient role in mitigating mobility dependency, both for
low mobile people, suffering from a lack of access to local amenities and for people highly
constrained in their daily mobility. Accessibility does not only depend on the quality of transport
network, but also on the spatial concentration of amenities and individual characteristics (Geurs
and Van Wee, 2014). This means that within the same territory, not all individuals and social
groups have the same access to resources. Different factors, such as age, gender, ethnicity, social
group, etc. can have a significant role in access to resources (Fol and Gallez, 2017). Applied to our
research topic, this raises the question of how a TOD model can help rethink the local accessibility
of the territory through the needs and mobility practices of the individuals. In this presentation,
we will focus on theoretical and methodological issues. First, we will review the place of TOD
model in the literature on multi-scale accessibility models. Then we will present methods to
rethink and measure the accessibility of the territory through different mobility practices. We will
support this methodology with our first results applied to a study case located in the periphery of
Ile-de-France region.