When the Tides Come, Where Will We Go?

For coastal urban areas, an increase in flooding is one of the clearest climate change threats. The research presented in this paper demonstrates how a land use–transport model can be used to forecast the short- and longer-term impacts of a potential 4-ft sea level rise in greater Boston, Massachusetts, by 2030. The short-term scenario represents the immediate transport system response to inundation, which provides a measure of resiliency in the case of an extreme event, such as a storm surge. In the short run, the results reveal that transit captive users will suffer more. Transit, in general, displays less resiliency, at least in part because of the center city’s vulnerability and Boston’s radial transit system. Trip distances would modestly decrease, and average travel speeds would go down by more than 50%. Rail transit ridership would be decimated, and overall transit usage would go down by 66%. The longer-term scenario predicts how households and firms would prefer to relocate in the so-called new eq...