The metro transit networks have been established in the Seoul Metropolitan Area since the 1970s, on the progress of construction and expansion of heavy rail transit. However, the local governments and operators have been struggled with operating defic...
The metro transit networks have been established in the Seoul Metropolitan Area since the 1970s, on the progress of construction and expansion of heavy rail transit. However, the local governments and operators have been struggled with operating deficit due to an enormous amount of construction costs from the beginning; many difficulties in obtaining additional heavy rail transit are being expected in the future. On the basis of this current situation, a new transportation means, BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) has been introduced in Korea. BRT is a new transportation system that has low-cost and high efficiency like the level of the heavy rail transit, through improvements to transit speed, scheduling, transport capacity, and the horizontal way of getting into and out of vehicles, and so on.
The Korean government has tried to improve the public transportation service quality and its use-revitalization so far, however, geographical separation between the work place and habitation site and geographical differentiation of social stratum have been on the rise. Therefore, the necessity of the TOD (Transit Oriented Development) is highly increasing, which revitalizes the public transportation use, and reduces the urban expansion through high-density multi-land use, the pedestrian friendly street network and urban design pattern in the public transit center such as the major bus or railway stations based on the theory of relationship between the land use and the traffic.
In terms of the public transit operating system by each type, the heavy rail transit is operated in the urban/suburban areas centering on the metropolitan bus transit center, and BRT has specialized mass transit systems for the metropolitan linkage or bus transit axis. In spite of quite many theories announced on the Neighborhood Unit, there is still lack of actual precedent to divide the life zone based on the public transit system. Therefore, the classification of the life zone centering on the public transit will be analyzed in this thesis.
The public transits such as the heavy rail transit or BRT have their operating systems. Considering their respective functions and roles that they have to take charge of the level composition of the neighborhood unit, the TOD type can be divided into the urban or neighborhood unit TOD for the heavy rail transit, and BRT can be referred to the urban or neighborhood unit or neighborhood district TOD with a scale of neighborhood unit or neighborhood district. The BRT-TOD model could be suitable for Korea is following.
However, the BRT-TOD model built based on the BRT would be difficult to apply to the virtual situation, therefore, a few derived problems caused by it and the proper policy proposal will be showed below.
First¸ of the provision 51 of the present land planning and use law, a part of the district unit planning zone should be revised in more detailed as: to allow the public transit center surrounding area or the railway station zone to be selected as the district unit planning zone. Moreover, the special law for the rearrangement promotion of urban area needs to be more specifically amended as the traffic management, the demand forecasting, the public transit & green transit use promotion and so on.
Second, introducing the multifunctional district unit system based on the land planning law that is on the high lever can be considered for the systematic urban space management. It can be adopted to Korea just as the U.S. has taken the overlay zoning system, which is useful for managing necessary spots within certain bounds (altering not much), overlapping the existing functional district unit system. In the Japanese case, they have been operating special district units within the fictional district unit, revising the urban planning law since 2000.
Third, the public transit center that would be a target of TOD should be developed in terms of intensive urban infrastructure due to the limits of the existing land use and development. The areas that need to be rearranged based on the certain rule or guideline type should be selected as the intensive urban planning zone. In addition, the intensive urban planning zone has to be allowed for a single united development including the underground, ground, and the air for a plan establishment, development, and land use. TOD should be clearly defined as well.
Fourth, rather than simply/temporarily planning the public transit centered development considering local features, a comprehensive planning for a long term is more important, needing the responsible division or department for the public transit centered TOD. Furthermore, a specialized organization for simplifying administrative process, analyzing the relevant regulations, and arbitrating the interested parties will be necessary.
Besides, making consistent and united guideline for the TOD adoption and promotion should be conducted and in-depth research on the promotion system building and implementation method is necessary. Moreover, in-depth study on receiving the development profit and the application method should be important.