Attitudes and Policy Implications of Urban Growth Boundary and Traffic Congestion Reduction in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

--Rapid urban growth occurred in 2009 resulted in residing 3.4 billion people in the world in urban areas. This number is expected to increase to 6.5 billion by 2050(United Nations, 2009). This phenomenon of urban growth has created challenges for several countries in both of developing and developed worlds. A complicated process involving in urban growth including the spatial temporal changes of all social, economic, and physical constituents at changed perspectives (Han et al 2009). The social, economic mechanisms of urban growth are related to urban population growth and economic growth, while physical constituents of urban growth and economic growth are associated with spatial growth, land cover change and land use change which are the focus of this paper. These complex interactions are caused by several forces such as transportation and communication, internal and international migrations, public policies, and high natural growth rates of urban populations (Hall 2000, Hart 2001). Positive and negative consequences are emerged from urban growth and expansion. The positive effects relates to well-planned and arranged urban growth, while negative effects associated with unplanned and scattered expansion, which is called sprawl. Traditional urban planning attitudes in fast growing cities like as Riyadh city in Saudi Arabia cannot accommodate the negative consequences of rapid urban growth. Significant indicators will be set as a result of this study to link the knowledge gap between urban growth and transportation research, and to provide an effective understanding of the relation between transportation and urban growth in developing and promptly growing cities such as Riyadh. Keywords----Urban growth, Transportation, Spatial analysis indicators, Riyadh