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Solutions: Transportation Strategies and Priorities
Changes in transportation strategies and priorities can combat sprawl, reinforce existing built areas, and lessen our dependence on the automobile.
One of the pioneering efforts in recognizing (and dealing with) the impact that highways have on development patterns is the Portland, Oregon, Metro area's LUTRAQ (Land Use, Transportation, and Air Quality Connection) project.
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 has had a major impact in changing transportation priorities. ISTEA -- reauthorized and now known as TEA-21, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, allows state and local governments more flexibility in the use of transportation funds -- transportation projects do not have to lead to increased sprawl; in fact, they can help counter sprawl.
For more on TEA-21, its impacts, and how it works, take a look at the excellent resources provided on the TEA-21 information pages of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
One promising approach to reducing the sprawl impacts of roadways is to better manage access to arterial roads and highways. This recognizes the strong relationship between transportation and land use planning. See, Access Management: An Overview & Guide for Roadway Corridors, by planner Elizabeth Humstone and landscape architect Julie Campoli.
Increasing roadway capacity in order to reduce congestion is often an expensive non-solution. Why Are the Roads So Congested?, a report prepared by the Surface Transportation Policy Project highlights the impact of "induced demand" -- that is, how added highway capacity leads to increased traffic. And the increased traffic is one component of a sprawling pattern of development.
-- the report was based on data from the Texas Transportation Institute
 Reinvestment in urban transit. A number of cities are reversing decades of disinvestment in public transit (witnessed in this typical scene of abandoned trolley tracks, here in a neighborhood of Washington, D.C.) and considering a return to rail-based transit (seen here in Toronto, one of the few North American cities that benefitted by continuing to maintain trolley routes).
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The importance that transportation decisions make in determining a region's growth pattern, and whether or not sprawl development is stimulated, was highlighted by the Georgia legislature's establishment, in 1999, of a powerful regional transportation authority for the Atlanta area. For more information, see the Georgia page of this Guide.
The Center for Liveable Communities "helps local governments and community leaders be proactive in their land use and transportation planning decision, and adopt programs and policies that lead to more livable and resource-efficient land use patterns."
Controlling Strip Development [to read excerpts from article by Ross Moldoff]. One of the most common problems facing planners is how to deal with commercial strip development along major road corridors.
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