Traffic Infrastructure, Environmental Impact and Urban Shape

Abstract

In the twentieth centwy motor and railway transport has increasedthe accessibility to goods and people through mobility,flexibility and comfort they provide. The result is generally theimprovement of living standards and beller opportunity forcommercial development of towns and regions as a whole. Theincreased number of vehicles in everyday traffic have increasedthe demand for new traffic infrastructures. A lot has alreadybeen built in open spaces as welt as in urban environment withbad impact on urban shape.Planning and construction of traffic infrastructurethroughout the urban structure is neither merely a11 engineeringnor just an aesthetic issue when integrating a new highway, freewayor railway into an urban environment. It is especially, if notprimarily, an issue of urban design. This means joint efforts ofengineering design and both urban and landscape architecturewith focusing sufficient alfention on possible multiple uses ofcommon urban space in good environmental conditions. TheSlovene Long Term Regional Plan, planning and constructionof highways in Slovenia initiated consideration and search foramethodology appropriate for the assessment of suitable layouts,especially in the complex cases of traffic infrastructure passingby or through urban areas. New findings described in this papersupplement the methodological approaches used so far.

Keywords

• traffic infrastructure
• environmental impacts
• urban shape
• vulnerability study