Land use and transport planning integration. Investigating the case of underground system in Warsaw, Poland

Observing many cases worldwide we can see how automobile depended development has shaped the city, in a decentralized and dispersed way. It has also caused problems such as growing congestions, increasing air pollution, traffic noise, road safety, degradation of urban landscape and global warming. This trend must be reversed, if significant headway is to be made in increasing cities’ economic competitiveness through energy- and time-efficiency improvements. Negative externalities such as air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions cannot be reduced and social equity cannot be promoted without action to prevent urban populations in developing coun¬tries from following this path of automobile-dependent sprawl. Many cities have found the answer to these problems in implementing sustainable solutions, in terms of transportation, to provide great network of public transport, including mass rapid transit systems. There is a strong belief that transit systems have indirect socio-economic and urban regeneration benefits, in addition to the direct transport and mobility improvements. There are studies which show that without an integrated approach in urban and transport planning fewer benefits can be achieved. Thus there are also many proposals of integrated approach of land use and transport planning in order to get greater profits. Such proposals include policy guidelines such as transit oriented development and location policies and more technical tools such as land value capture mechanisms. This thesis deals with the case of Warsaw and how Warsaw is facing problems of automobile development, increasing number of motorization rate and urban sprawl. Having in mind ongoing metro construction, which is the biggest public investment in recent years, it was crucial to investigate whether already implemented line aimed to solve transport demand issue or it brought also greater indirect benefits for the city. This paper describes the state of integration between land use and transport planning and whether any kind of planning tools studied are being implemented in Warsaw, on a city and local scale. It also discusses some direct and indirect effects of the last part (4 metro stations) of the 1st line which was opened in 2008 on focus area – district Bielany. Having in mind that in comparison to the investment done results are not satisfactory there will be a strategy for focused area presented. The development of strategy for Bielany district with possible project interventions that Warsaw can initiate will be suggested as a course of action in an effort to obtain greater benefits from an expansion of metro infrastructure.