How Do Motorways Shape Commuting Patterns?
This paper is an offspring from a larger research project addressing the effect of the Danish motorway network on urbanization and spatial interaction patterns in the last 20 years. This paper will present results on how and to what a degree the building of the motorway network has shaped spatial interactions patterns in Denmark. Almost half of Denmarks 1000 km of motorway has been completed within the last 20 years. The limited access motorway, allowing speeds until 110 km/h (soon 130 km/h), is the top of the road hierarchy in most parts of the country and forms a continuous network connecting cities all over the country through high-speed corridors. Theoretically this development has a strong potential to affect the pattern of transportation as well as urban development in general. However as the debate on induced demand shows it is a difficult task to reveal an effect of road building in itself. Ordinary cross-sectional analysis will always run into difficulties when it comes to sor
