Utrecht-region under pressure

Abstract

Contemporary city-regions are facing major challenges concerning the relation between mobility and urbanity. A concrete example of this is the phenomenon of urban sprawl, which evolved in the US and also in Western Europe. The car is a very popular mode of transportation. However, the automobile has some serious spatial consequences. It had a major role in the spatial planning practice of our environment the last decades. In fact, the automobile can be named as an unsustainable mode of transportation and its popularity has some major spatial consequences. The planning challenge for the future is therefore to tune the issues of infrastructure, accessibility and spatial developments for the development of sustainable city-regions. However, the development of a sustainable city-region is asking for a package of measures. Spatial planning and strategy is one of the parts that can contribute to the development of sustainable city-regions. A city-region whereby this relation between mobility and urbanity is very specific and urgent is the Utrecht-region. This region functions as an important connecter between the Randstad and the hinterland. The region is under pressure for several reasons. First, there are significant housing shortages in the region. Moreover, these housing shortages are increasing in the future, despite the fact that a lot of new dwellings are being built. Next to this, there are problems in the region concerning its accessibility. Capacity problems in the regional public transport system and congestion problems on the road network are the daily examples. The challenge hereby is to search for a suitable spatial strategy to deal with the relation between mobility and urbanity. For the Utrecht-region, a strategy has to be found to deal with the housing shortages and the accessibility of the region at the same time. The specific goal for the Utrecht-region is to boost the region’s comparative advantages, to maintain its spatial qualities and strengthen the position of the region in the Randstad. A spatial concept that integrates spatial development and public transport is the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD). The goals of TOD appear on the regional and the local scale. In this research and design the focus is on the regional goals of TOD. Interactions and movements of people in space mostly occur on this specific scale level. Station areas can be named as nodes of human interactions and are therefore of great importance in spatial planning. In that way station areas are important objects of research. In this project the research of station areas is done with the node-place model of Bertolini. The node-place model addresses the ambivalent character of station areas: a (regional) node in the public transport system and a (local) place in the city. With the application of this model for the Utrecht-region, the potentials and opportunities of all the existing, planned and possible new stations are analyzed. In this way, the node-place model is supporting the design decisions made in the regional design proposal for the Utrecht-region. Every station area is proposed to develop in a certain direction, for the development of the Utrecht-region in a transit oriented way. Both, potentials of station areas and regional design goals were principal in the development of the design and strategy. Simultaneously with the research and design of the station areas, the public transport system of the Randstad is restructured. New layers of public transport are introduced: the e.g. interregional system and an agglomerative system. For a horizontal and vertical integration of public transport it is necessary to switch between different levels of scale. The integration between spatial developments and the (agglomerative) public transport system was hereby an important goal. If the regional design for the Utrecht-region is compared with the current municipal plans some remarkable differences appear. Planned development locations by the different municipalities are often not located near high-quality public transport like, light rail or traditional heavy rail stations. An example is the major extension area of Rijnenburg, located in an area with a very poor access to public transit. In the proposed regional design for the Utrecht-region, spatial developments are mostly concentrated within a 600 meters catchment radius of a traditional station area. The allocation of spatial developments near the station areas will lead to a major reduction of the housing shortages in the Utrecht-region. The development of the different station areas in a certain typology has led to a less dominant position of Utrecht Centraal. It is no longer a matter of Utrecht Centraal, and all the other of the stations without major differences. The concentration of spatial developments around transit as proposed in this research and design will probably lead to a decrease of the demand for mobility of people. The concept of transit-oriented development will lead to less car dependency and a bundling of movements in the Utrecht-region. The application of this concept for the Utrecht-region requires a major effort of the different stakeholders. The BRU could have a facilitating and steering role in this development process. The integration of the different aspects of planning, e.g. regional development, public transport and nature is thereby essential.