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Abstract
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Density is about people wanting to be in the same place. It's not hard to see that the more people who want to be in the same place the more that a mass transit system will be needed, so it's not surprising that there will be a relationship between density and transport. Our work over several decades has been about finding thresholds that can help in making these relationships transparent (Kenworthy et al, 1999; Newman and Kenworthy, 1989, 1999, 2006).
Making mass transit functional will also depend on how frequent its service is available. The densest places will not have much transit patronage if services are not provided. Paul Mees' work over several decades has been on making these service level relationships transparent (Mees, 2000, 2009).
It's pretty clear therefore that we shouldn't be fighting over these matters. Nevertheless, we need to say something in public that we have said privately to Paul several times: he is wrong to denigrate the role of density and he is wrong in his analysis that seeks to show this (Mees, 2009; Morton and Mees, 2010). The reality is that density and quality/quantity of services are both essential features of mass transit.
Nevertheless, Mees describes "the density delusion" as being the biggest barrier to improving public transport in Australia. We would like to show that density is a multiplier for any services you provide. In particular, transit use can be multiplied many times by density increases.
The biggest mystery to us remains why Paul continues to want to denigrate density like this as it does create doubt in the mind of policy makers. |