Larry Frank

Dr. Frank is the Bombardier Chairholder in Sustainable Transportation at the University of British Columbia and Senior Non-resident Fellow of the Brookings Institution.  He specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behavior, air quality, and health.  He has been studying the effects of neighborhood walkability on travel patterns and sustainability for nearly 20 years.  He has lead or co-authored dozens of papers and two books Health and Community Design, The Impacts of The Built Environment on Physical Activity and Urban Sprawl and Public Health on these topics.  He and his colleagues have also been conducting detailed assessments of fuel consumption and climate change impacts of urban form policies.  Over the past decade Dr. Frank has been working directly with local governments to help translate results from research into practice based tools that can provide direct feedback on the health and environmental impacts of alternative transportation and land development proposals.

Major Areas of Expertise in Sustainability Planning

1. The linkages between the built environment and human activity patterns – and more specifically, the influence of land use and transportation investment decisions on travel choice. This area of inquiry has been very active over the past decade, resulting in a general understanding that more compact, mixed use and inter connected street networks are associated with lower levels of vehicle use and increased transit and non-motorized travel.

a) Most relevant course: PLAN 580, PLAN 581b) Other closely related courses in SCARP:c) Other closely related courses at UBC:

2. The impact of interactions between the built environment and human health including physical activity and weight, air quality and respiratory conditions, and on social interaction and well-being.

a) Most relevant course: PLAN 581b) Other closely related courses in SCARP:c) Other closely related courses at UBC:

3. The influence of land use and transportation decisions on energy consumption, air quality, and on global warming. This area of interest is focused on the comparative assessment of how specific air pollutants and greenhouse gases are formed and how much we can improve air pollution and reduce CO2 formation through structural changes to the built environment and to the adoption of programmatic strategies to reduce auto usage including employer based incentives, parking fees, car sharing, and other similar actions.

a) Most relevant course: PLAN 580b) Other closely related courses in SCARP:c) Other closely related courses at UBC: