Synthesizing Long-Term Accessibility Trends

As with short-term change in accessibility, long-term changes are influenced by transportation network changes and land use influences. The land use influences become more important in the long run, as accessibility is absorbed into the value of the land, changing its potential use, as with the St. Croix bridge example. The social and demographic factors influencing travel behavior clearly have long-term impact as well. The main pathway of influence of demographics is through peak travel demand, which reduces accessibility through congestion. Not fully explored here is the idea that the spatial distribution of residents (and thus origins) is also a mechanism to change accessibility over the long term, without changing the transportation infrastructure. Especially considering the lack of negative effects or even mild positive feedbacks of increased ridership on transit accessibility, increased density of residents in an area of high transit accessibility can be an effective way of managing the transportation system.