Neighbourhood Design and VMT: Is Malaysia Planning to Achieve the Spirit of New Urbanism?

Abstract

Urban population currently represents sixty eight percent of the total population of Malaysia, doubling its value of thirty three percent in 1970. By the year 2020, when Malaysia plans to achieve industrialised-nation status, about two thirds of the population will be in urban areas living in mass-produced housing schemes first constructed in the 1970s. Although travel modes have changed significantly in Malaysia along with the changes in the physical design of these housing areas, very little is known about how the changes influence household vehicle-miles-travelled (VMT). The effects of neighbourhood design on VMT are an important aspect to consider in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, this paper presents the findings of a study carried out in the City of Johor Bahru, within the designated economic growth area of Iskandar Malaysia, to understand how the change in neighbourhood designs over the decades due to policies and lifestyles influences VMT. Fifty-two residential neighbourhoods representing several decades from the 1970s to the 2000s were selected and travel diaries of their randomly selected households were recorded. While the results obtained confirm the prevalent theory on the relationship between neighbourhood design and VMT, unfortunately for the study area the average VMT has been increasing with the newly designed neighbourhoods. Increasing wealth and mobility apparently has seen increasing demand for neighbourhood designs that are not as compact as the traditional ones and not as ‘mixed use’ either. While the rest of the world is going for ‘new urbanism’, Malaysia, which embraced its form of ‘new urbanism’ called ‘mixed development’ since the 1970s, is doing the opposite. As the population of Johor Bahru is rapidly growing due to its location in the economic growth area of Iskandar Malaysia, serious rethinking of the current development policies is in order.