Land use planning using transit oriented development concept : case study of Salaya Station

Abstract

The urban sprawl of Bangkok has become more severe with the expansion of the road network to adjacent cities. Nakhonpathom province, located at the southern edge of Bangkok, has been affected by the urban sprawl. One of Nakhonpathom's Districts named "Salaya" has been quickly urbanized due to the establishment of many large academic institutes, such as universities, colleges and high schools as well as many new commercial shopping malls. Between the period of 2013-2017, the Thai government emphasized on sustainable urban planning policy and promoted the use of public transportation systems. The Light Red Line railway extension of the Bangkok Metro Transit system will soon be constructed and the current Salaya Station will be replaced with a new station. The new Salaya Station should be designed by using the transit-oriented development (TOD) scheme. This paper explored demographic information of the area, the demands of the community and relevant stakeholders for the designing of the station area based on TOD concept. The proposed land use planning is designed based on the existing conditions of the area together with the consideration of the TOD's standard and stakeholders' requirement. The results revealed that the guidelines of the transit oriented development concept were importance for planning of urban land use, supporting public transport, and improving the quality of life in term of socioeconomic community. The results of land use area survey found that the most of area was for housing area at about 58%, secondly, for office area at about 17%, commercial area was about 15%, and public area or park, government area was around 10%. According to Land use zoning, the area is designed based on the existing conditions of the area, density, and demand of the population. The existing land should be used to preserve the area around Salaya station. In addition, questionnaires, specialists, and focus group meeting were agreed to with the TOD concept based on a characteristic of the area. The factors have influence with people to come into the Salaya area were: 1) The area has bike paths around the station and the surrounding area. 2) The area has a quality of pathways which are is shady and connected. 3) The area has a lot of types of accommodation at reasonable prices. Additionally, the 3 factors that affected the connection between the station were; 1) Pedestrian safe, easy to access, shady, and a complete network path between the stations. 2) Bicycle way is safe, comfortable and complete network of creating safety bicycle parking at the station. 3) A bicycle way and pedestrian have several routes, compact and have complete connections. Especially, distance should be shorter than the road. The successful implementation of TOD requires the cooperation of stakeholder to agree on the importance of TOD concept and pursue the concept into implementation.