An interesting report, from a new organisation called Transport for New Homes, examines a number of greenfield housing developments in Britain, criticising most of them for generating excessive car dependence. This is in part due to location away from existing centres, and in part to disregard of public transport possibilities in the planning process. Generally, the arguments are well made. However, what is missing is survey evidence of the experiences and attitudes of occupants of these new houses. The BBC reports a couple of anecdotal examples of dissatisfaction of residents. Yet these may not be typical since those whose choose to live in such housing may prefer the car to the public transport, walking and cycling alternatives. After all, car dependent lifestyles are adopted by choice by many residents of cities where alternatives exist.
The developers of new greenfield housing construct new properties to sell, which they of course do, reflecting the need for new housing and the preferences of many for location away from traditional urban centres. The lack of public transport provision tends to arise from the relatively small scale of developments, in a context in which bus use is generally on the decline. The report discusses some developments of new urban quarters in the Netherlands, where the scale and location adjacent to existing towns means that good public transport provision is feasible. One example, Almere, is a planned city built on land reclaimed from the sea, which makes large scale development possible. In Britain, assembling land on that scale has not been attempted since the post-War new towns.
It would be worth considering innovative approaches to transport provision for greenfield housing developments, for instance as in Pinellas County, Florida, where residents can use a subsidised Uber service to reach the core bus routes – known as ‘micro-transit’.