Suchergebnisse

Equity and environmental justice issues have again become prominent topics of debate in transportation planning and research in the last ten years. Advocates for environmental justice – for short, EJ – have made themselves highly visible in many transportation planning and decision-making processes, in some cases seeking seats at the table and in other cases using protest, political pressure, and legal action to force change. Transportation practitioners have responded in many different ways, in some cases by forming partnerships for new programs serving low income and minority populations and in other cases resisting the perceived challenges to their expertise and authority. Researchers have been heavily involved, providing technical documentation for and against the varying claims of the parties and examining EJ activities as a topic for research.

A structured survey of transit agency staff and interviews with agency executives and other local leaders were conducted in areas that have undertaken a major transit investment project in the past 5 years. The purpose was to identify methods and procedures used to evaluate and select projects and, in particular, to document how land use considerations are being incorporated into project decisions. Staff members responsible for 41 projects were contacted, and 28 completed the survey, discussing projects in 23 regions of the United States. Supplementary interviews were conducted for 10 of the regions. The study found that most agencies use federal guidance and regulations on the evaluation of transit investment as a starting point, but give equal weight in project design and selection to state and local policy objectives such as social equity, economic development, and fair-share distribution of projects among local communities. A number of transit agencies give priority to projects in jurisdictions with transit-supportive land use patterns or plans. The availability of public or private funding contributions is increasingly important in prioritizing projects. Increasingly, transit agencies are hiring staff to work with local governments on land use planning and on funding partnerships and are working with them to develop a shared understanding of the area's transit needs and related development objectives. Staff and political leaders deem these efforts at least as important as technical evaluations of cost-effectiveness.

This paper examines sustainable transportation issues, drawing upon the literature as well as on evidence from a study tour of Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scotland. Greenhouse gases have been the initial motivation for most sustainable transportation initiatives, but broader social, economic, and environmental concerns now figure into the idea of sustainability. In the US, barriers to sustainability include uncertainty about the problem and the best ways to address it, as well as uncertainties about public support. Nevertheless, many efforts are underway locally in the US to promote sustainable development and sustainable transportation. The European organizations visited are using many of the same strategies as are US planners, but can rely on strong policy commitments, government incentives, and new planning processes putting an emphasis on collaboration and performance measurement to support their efforts.

Interstate highways have had broad social effects on the United States. The Interstates have not only altered how the nation travels, and how much, but also have changed the structure of communities and regions and the choices that residents are able to make on where to live, work, shop, and play. For many, the social impacts of the Interstates have been positive: increased access, mobility, and options for individuals, households, and firms. For others, however – especially for those not able to own or drive a car – the Interstates have decreased access and mobility by undermining the viability of alternative modes of transport. Similarly, some communities have developed because of the Interstates, but others never have recovered from Interstate construction and are subjected to Interstate-related noise and emissions. The Interstate Highway System also has had profound impacts on American institutions. The Interstate program helped create highway departments with a strong set of norms, values, and beliefs that continue to guide organizational missions, day-to-day activities, and views of the department's role in society. In turn, the program has led to changes in government organization, sometimes to counteract the dominant focus on highway building. The redistribution of power and authority from independent highway commissions to governors and legislators and from state highway departments to metropolitan planning organizations is an example of institutional change sparked by the Interstate program and its impacts.

This paper investigates factors affecting ITS implementation as a "mainstream" transportation planning activity. It draws upon interviews with 51 leaders from a cross-section of jurisdictions and agencies in California. The interviews revealed that the vast majority of elected officials and senior staff are familiar with ITS. However, they are irritated by ITS literature, which they view as heavily promotional and full of jargon. Many believe that ITS is being implemented fairly quickly overall and that ITS elements that are not proceeding well suffer from institutional problems or market weaknesses. Respondents do not see a problem in fitting ITS projects into mainstream transportation planning processes, but complain of a lack of good information on ITS benefits and costs. Many are concerned that ITS evaluations have been less than arm's-length, and focus too heavily on system benefits rather than traveler benefits. Many believe that the private sector should be left to implement certain ITS applications, but they also think that earmarked funds for ITS applications would speed implementation of other measures. Respondents suggested that the state DOT should lead by example, implementing ready-to-go technologies on its own facilities and within its own agency. Stronger partnerships with local government and other state agencies, developing mutually beneficial, multipurpose applications, were also recommended. Finally, respondents urged that future ITS work should pay more attention to legal and institutional issues and provide a clearer sense of "next steps." The findings should be of use to state and local organizations with an interest in encouraging ITS implementation.

Traffic congestion is a growing problem in California, and its effects are being felt throughout the state in reduced amenity, productivity, and profitability. Two reasons for congestion increases are the shortage of public funds for transportation and the lack of coordination of land use planning and development decisions with available and planned transportation capacity. This paper examines current and anticipated trends and practices in transportation and land development and discusses some strategies that the state could consider to improve decisions and outcomes. Financing problems plague both highway and transit programs at a time when overall demand for transportation is rapidly growing and patterns of demand are shifting. Development trends are likely to increase the pressures on the transportation systems, both in established and new-growth areas. Yet little coordination between transportation and land use plans, programs, and investments is apparent. This lack of coordination results from the institutional division of responsibilities for transportation and land use and weaknesses in state law concerning consistency in planning and implementation, as well as lack of funds to deliver needed transportation facilities and services and local governments' strong desires for development. While a number of local governments are utilizing development exactions and impact fees to finance transportation improvements and are implementing transportation systems management and TSM-oriented site design requirements, these strategies are rarely sufficient to resolve traffic problems over the longer run. Some local governments are considering policies that tie permitted land development to existing and planned transportation capacity. yet for many, this poses a dilemma: without the funds to improve transportation, greater coordination often would mean downzoning or other limitations on much-desired development. What is needed are a set of strategies that can enhance local governments' willingness to match development with needed transportation improvements, while allowing for reasonable and necessary growth. Such strategies might entail new requirements for transportation plans and investment programs at the local level, tied to reasonable standards for transportation levels of service; coordination of these local plans and programs with regional and state transportation plans and programs; strengthened requirements for consistency between land use and circulation elements of General Plans, and between General Plans and sub-division, zoning, and transportation investment programs; and additional financing for transportation, as an incentive to comply with the other strategies. While such an approach could be met with local government concerns about home rule and taxpayer resistance to increased fuel taxes, the prospects for substantially better transportation and the benefits it would bring the state could be sufficient to overcome such barriers.

This paper reviews land use and transportation planning policies and practices in California and assesses issues raised by various strategies being utilized to address congestion problems. Shrinking revenues, escalating costs, and concerns about social and environmental impacts have combined to constrain state highway building; financial problems and difficulties in attracting riders have deterred transit expansion. Consequently, local governments are having to shoulder greater responsibility for transportation. Three approaches are increasingly being used: developer exactions and impact fees; transportation systems management programs and ordinances which encourage trip reduction and the use of alternative modes; and general plan subdivision control, and zoning revisions. Few local governments are well equipped to carry out these new tasks. Planning departments have few staff members with training in transportation planning and analysis, and have left these matters largely to engineering departments. But engineering departments also lack expertise in the areas of demand management and land use-transportation coordination. Methodological and data shortcomings further limit the ability of local planners and engineers to tackle land use and transportation planning issues. Finally, the highly politicized circumstances under which many traffic mitigation efforts take place thrust planners into roles for which many have little training or experience: developing compromises between pro- and anti-growth interests, carrying out negotiations with developers and community groups, and preparing development revenue forecasts and financing plans. These findings suggest a need for additional research on methods to coordinate transportation and land use; more rigorous requirements and incentives for local transportation-land use coordination; greater cross-training of planners and engineers; and greater exposure of planning and engineering students to the techniques and issues of project evaluation, negotiation, and the political process.

Toll financing is emerging as a major means of paying for new highways in the United States. Some 1200 miles (1900 km) of new toll facilities are under study, design, or construction, with some thirty-five projects in seventeen states. While toll roads are not new to the US - a number were constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and those built in the 1940s and 1950s serve today as the major interregional highways in many states - the current crop of projects will add as much toll mileage as the total opened in the previous thirty years (Sandlin, 1989). Furthermore, the new interest in toll roads has led Congress to life a seventy-year prohibition against the use of federal funds for toll road construction; federally-assisted 'demonstration projects' in several states are now being planned. Some observers believe the new toll roads are the wave of the future, offering a way out of financing binds facing most highway programmes. In addition, proponents note, toll roads offer a pathway for the introduction of new technologies, including tolling based on automatic vehicle identification and utilizing computerized billing systems. Because such systems would make it possible to implement both congestion pricing and weight-distance pricing, the toll roads are seen as a route to lasting relief from congestion problems and highway maintenance difficulties. The new toll roads do incorporate a number of innovations. Whereas the US toll roads of earlier decades were almost all state government initiatives, many of the new projects involve private sector organizations as key players in finance, implementation, and operation. A variety of arrangements sharing responsibilities for the facilities among land developers, state and local government, engineering firms, and financial institutions are being devised. New technologies being implemented on some of the new toll roads will provide for more efficient toll collection (non-stop toll assessment collected via a monthly bill), and possibly will open the way for more sophisticated road pricing. The toll roads are not without their detractors, however. Some question whether toll facilities make sense in other than very limited circumstances. Others question whether they are equitable, or are conveniences for the well-to-do that leave the transportation troubles of the less favoured unaddressed. When the toll roads are implemented through public-private partnerships, concerns about whether the public is getting a fair exchange or subsidizing special interests sometimes arise. When toll roads are built through special fast-track procedures that omit environmental reviews and public comment, their broader social acceptability comes under criticism. The potential of toll roads as a transportation strategy thus is very much a matter deserving further consideration. This paper reviews the new toll road projects and assesses the pros and cons concerning their proliferation. The paper begins with a brief review of US toll road policy, then examines the renewed interest in toll road development. Concerns raised about tolls are examined next, followed by a discussion of possible future directions for toll road policy.

Urban arterials are both promising and problematic locations for infill development and urban revitalization. San Pablo Avenue, a multilane urban arterial traversing nine cities and two counties along the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in California, is considered here. The road developed over a long period: first as a streetcar line, then as an inter-city automobile route, and most recently as a subregional traffic and transit route. Land uses from each of these transportation eras are still present along the avenue and range from neighborhood retail to automobile-oriented strip development. Recent transit service improvements and a strong housing market are leading to new developer interest in San Pablo Avenue. Findings are reported from interviews with 11 developers who recently built infill housing and mixed-use projects on or near the arterial. Developers see San Pablo Avenue's accessibility as a major asset but view transit services as a bonus instead of a necessity; transit availability allows developers to argue for reduced transportation impact fees and reduced parking requirements. Other aspects of the arterial's design, including high speeds and unattractive streetscapes, are problematic, as are zoning ordinances that require high parking ratios, large setbacks, and lengthy, discretionary approval processes. Small land parcels, incompatible adjacent uses, and high development costs are also drawbacks but, with creative development, are manageable. Local governments could provide incentives for private development along arterials such as San Pablo Avenue by improving street designs, reducing parking requirements, and updating zoning codes and approval processes.

Electronics and telecommunications are rapidly changing and are having significant impacts on social and economic activity, with major implications for transportation. Location of businesses and households may be altered as telecommunications options improve. Already, there is evidence that businesses have become less dependent on proximate locations as electronic links have become more effective alternatives to face-to-face communications. And while full-time telecommuting is relatively rare today, telecommunications systems do appear to enable many workers to "commute" from a home office on a part-time basis. In an era when major physical infrastructure projects are increasingly hard to complete and yet travel demands have never been greater, information technology offers great promise in enhancing existing capacity with relatively minor adjustments to existing physical infrastructure. In implementing information technology, however, it is important to appreciate the political context. Seemingly ironic, learning from failure and improving on mistakes is actually crucial in technological innovation and progress.

In this study we are documenting and comparing the economic and travel impacts of bypass roads in the United States and Israel on the towns near which they are constructed. Using historical research, on-site observations, interviews, surveys, and data analyses we consider the effects of bypasses on local and through traffic, travel patterns, development patterns, and the local urban economy in the immediately affected communities. We aim elucidate how road design, market forces, local politics, land use policies, planning and zoning and location-specific factors interact to produce the effects we observe. The incidence of costs and benefits upon various interest groups within the local community is a particular focus of the research. In Israel, we are examining the impacts of a regional road affecting three towns. In the United States, we are examining the impact of two different regional roads, one in New Hampshire and the other in California, each road affecting two towns. For all the cases, the bypasses divert traffic from the centers of small communities that are along major corridors for through traffic. The bypasses have been built at different times and some towns have not been bypassed, allowing us to consider with/without effects as well as the effects of the bypasses over time. We will consider not only overall impacts of the roads but the spatial and socio-economic distribution of those impacts.