Public transport-oriented urban planning: a Franco-Czech perspective through a dual qualitative and quantitative methodological approach.
Résumé
This article deals with the field of public transport-oriented urban planning and focuses on the elements of spatial arrangement, whose integration into urban design within the zone around the public transport station is likely to have a positive impact on the modal choice in favour of the latter. Emphasis is given to the dimension dealing with the layout of the pedestrian paths (walkability) giving access to the stations, less supported in the existing works on this topic.
The work consists in exposing an original method of analysis of the "degree of integration with the principles of public transport-oriented urban planning" in the urban design of an existing or planned urban environment. This method, developed on the basis of criteria previously established for this purpose, is based on spatial diagnostic approaches, including in particular in situ surveys. It is divided into two approaches, qualitative and quantitative, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. The first allows to apprehend a larger sample of fields, to then lead to a comparative synthesis, but through an exclusively qualitative observation of the fields of study. The other deals with only two pilot fields in favour of quantitative observation, with recourse to GIS and most of the data being newly identified and created, which makes it possible to obtain a more formalized and more objective assessment and which leads to mapped results.
The approach is tested in two different cultural contexts – in the Czech Republic and in France. Indeed, the role of urban transport in these two countries has undergone a contrasting evolution over time, which reveals different forms of coordination between transport and urban planning. Detailed analyses are then carried out in several medium-sized towns (Liberec, Brno, Orléans, Grenoble, Montpellier) and their collective housing neighbourhoods.