A Systems Thinking Perspective on the Transportation and Regional Growth Study

Abstract

This report integrates the findings of several individual reports from the Transportation and Regional Growth Study (TRGS) into a comprehensive "systems thinking perspective" on the Twin Cities' transportation and land use system. The document explores the findings and rationale in TRGS reports by principal investigators John Adams, Gary Barnes, Gary Davis, David Anderson, Gerard McCullough, Barry Ryan, Thomas F. Stinson, Lance Neckar, Barbara Lukermann, and Thomas Scott. The purpose of this report is to generate new insights that are valuable to policy makers and to surface the systemic assumptions underlying the research of the principal investigators. The results of the principal investigators' reports are summarized in three pages of nuggets, while the author of this document suggests several of his own key findings, principally the recommendation that all of the key variables in the Twin Cities land use and transportation system should be measured, monitored, and routinely communicated to the public and governmental policy makers. This integration report shows what those key variables are and presents a rich hypothesis on how they are causally related to each other.