Proposed New City Development and Public Transport Accessibility: A Case Study of Yangtze River New City of the City of Wuhan

Sustainable urban transportation has so many indicators. Accessibility is one of the most important indicators of a sustainable urban transportation system. To overcome the negative impacts of car-oriented development of cities, transit-oriented developments are being encouraged. This study aims to analyze the level of public transport accessibility in the city of Wuhan taking into consideration a proposed new city. Production Exchange Consumption Allocation System(PECAS), an integrated land-use transport model, is used together with the TransCAD environment to measure public transport accessibility to jobs using a multi-modal transport network. Geostatistics methods, the Lorenz curve, and Gini Coefficient were used to show the level of public transport equity among the residents of the urban and the rural areas. The study identified the proposed new city as inequitable in terms of public transport accessibility. The results showed that the overall future public transport accessibility of Wuhan is promising and covers a wide range of traffic analysis zones (TAZs). However, disparity in the public transport system between the urban and rural areas has been identified. For residents to get better access to jobs, shopping centers, and hospitals, public transport resources must be equally distributed. The reason being low-income group and those that are socially disadvantaged depends mostly on public transport. Public transport infrastructure that is distributed equitably within the entire geographical area will inevitably lead to economic, social, and environmental benefits for all citizens. Finally, new urban development should be focused on public transport accessibility enhancement to prevent car-oriented development.