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Despite the rather obvious link between transportation investments and development patterns, land use planning is simply not a consideration at your average state DOT.

The town of Metuchen is one of New Jersey's "Transit Villages," a program designed to encourage sustainable, transit oriented development. Photo: NJ.com

Most state DOTs — and there are notable exceptions — see their primary responsibility as building highways, never mind that highways are likely to spur outward development, which leads to the need for more highways. What comes after the highways are built is considered by many to be beyond the state transportation agency’s scope.

A decade ago, however, the state of New Jersey — historically a poster child for sprawl — achieved a transportation planning breakthrough. Two administrators at the New Jersey Department of Transportation set out to reverse the whole dynamic. They wanted to make transportation projects more holistic, serving communities rather than subordinating all other concerns to the hallowed cause of car capacity. They wanted to infuse transportation planning with a land use strategy that would minimize costs and environmental impacts.

At the time, the Garden State was rapidly approaching the limits of its developable land. And the standard practice of tackling congestion with more roads just seemed to be a fiscal impossibility, says Jack Lettiere, who led NJDOT from 2002 to 2006.

“We spent tens of millions trying to relieve congestion,” said Lettiere. “The faster we went, the slower we went. People were getting mad at us. Funds were getting low.”

Working with planning director Gary Toth, Lettiere sought to institute a new approach. They created a program within the department called New Jersey Future in Transportation (FIT) and, though later administrations have diluted its impact, the concept remains influential.

At the time, NJDOT was building on a concept, pioneered by the state of Maryland, called “Context Sensitive Solutions.”

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Transit investment lagged in regions where MPO boards did not give equal representation to city populations, Detroit being an especially bad example. In more democratic metros, investment was much more balanced. Image: Nelson, 2003

Do you know the name of your local Metropolitan Planning Organization or Council of Government? Most Americans don’t. In fact, most people probably have no idea these agencies even exist, let alone what they do. Yet they are surprisingly powerful and play a substantial role in shaping the places where we live and work.

Led by unelected boards, MPOs and COGs, as they’re known, are a special breed among government agencies. They lack the authority to issue taxes or impose laws. As such, they go largely unmentioned in the media and are mostly unknown to local residents, outside of the most wonkish circles. But the low profile of MPOs and COGs belies their considerable power.

Despite their limitations, they represent the strongest form of regional governance we’ve got in the United States, crossing city and county lines. More importantly, they disperse hundreds of millions of federal transportation dollars annually. MPOs and COGs are powerful forces shaping metro regions. While these agencies often distribute transportation funds more fairly than state DOTs, many of them are structured in a way that favors sprawl and undermines cities.

MPOs and COGs can be profoundly undemocratic. They are governed by boards of public officeholders, but there is no requirement that they be in any way representative of the region’s population. In fact, the general rule that governs the composition of MPO boards is “one place, one vote,” rather than the more traditional “one person, one vote.” This often produces decisions dramatically skewed toward suburban and rural interests.

For example, greater Milwaukee’s MPO, known by the unwieldy acronym SEWRPC, is governed by a board of 21 members, three from each of the counties that make up the planning region. That means that the city of Milwaukee — population nearly 600,000 — has zero representatives on the commission that distributes millions of dollars for transportation throughout the region. It is not guaranteed any votes. The city’s only voting power comes from the three seats given to Milwaukee County — and those must be spread between the central city and many suburbs. Meanwhile, rural Walworth County — population 100,000 — is guaranteed three votes.

Milwaukee is an especially egregious case. But unfortunately, this general pattern is more the norm than the exception. A 1999 Brookings Institution study [PDF] found that central cities were under-represented in as many as 92 percent of MPOs and COGs.

That bias can have a strong impact on policy, further research has shown. A 2003 study by researchers at Virginia Tech found that for each additional suburban member on an MPO board, there was a 1 to 9 percent decrease in funding for transit — with highways being the favored alternative.

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According to AARP, 88 percent of seniors want to stay in their own homes as long as they can. But where are those homes? In auto-dependent suburbs. That’s where most Baby Boomers grew up, in the postwar era, and that’s where most of them have stayed – even as the largest (and longest-living) generation ever enters its golden years.

As baby boomers age, more of them are finding that auto dependent suburbia doesn't work for everybody. Photo: Transportation for America

However, more than 20 percent of seniors (age 65 and up) do not drive at all. In the spread-out, transit-poor communities where many of them live, seniors who don’t drive miss out on countless opportunities. According to a report released today by Transportation for America called “Aging in Place: Stuck Without Options”:

Absent access to affordable travel options, seniors face isolation, a reduced quality of life and possible economic hardship. A 2004 study found that seniors age 65 and older who no longer drive make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor, 59 percent fewer trips to shop or eat out, and 65 percent fewer trips to visit friends and family, than drivers of the same age.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology conducted the analysis for the T4A report, finding that a large proportion of seniors lack transit access currently, and that in 2015, just a few short years away, 15.5 million seniors will find themselves without transportation options

“My generation grew up and reared our children in communities that, for the first time in human history, were built on the assumption that everyone would be able to drive an automobile,” said John Robert Smith, former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi and co-chair of Transportation for America.

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Word went out in a press release early last month: The Missouri Department of Transportation would be eliminating 1,200 jobs, closing 135 facilities and selling 740 pieces of equipment.

“This is about survival,” said MoDOT spokesman Jorma Duran. “This is about making sure our roads and bridges continue to be maintained and operable.”

Drastic times call for drastic measures. And outdated gas tax rates, state operating shortfalls and a lack of forethought are combining to create a crisis for state DOTs in Missouri and beyond. In the last two years, Virginia DOT let go of 1,000 employees and New York DOT eliminated 100 positions.

The Virginia Department of Transportation made 1,000 layoffs in 2009, the biggest reduction in the history of the agency. Photo: Richmond Times-Dispatch

“We just ran out of money,” Reta Busher, VDOT’s chief financial officer, told the Richmond Times Dispatch.

State transportation agencies are adjusting to a “new reality,” said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. And there will be widely felt impacts.

“It’s terrible,” he said. “Because of these economic crises, you’ll see projects put off. States will not do as much as they recognize is absolutely essential.” Horsley said the most vulnerable employees are rural maintenance crews. And those job losses are likely to have a painful ripple effect across already recession-battered states, he said.

“If you go to rural Missouri and just about any rural place, the state maintenance facility is one of the most important employers,” Horsley said. “That’s a real blow to rural economies all over Missouri. Those paychecks were very important to those regions.”

How did states get into this mess? Well, stagnant gas taxes are a big part of it. States depend on gas taxes — federal and their own — for an average of 24 percent of their budgets, according to Smart Growth America. But since the gas tax was last raised in 1993, inflation and greater fuel efficiency have greatly diminished its purchasing power. In addition, many states have not had the political gumption to take on gas tax hikes themselves (Georgia and Connecticut being a few notable exceptions).

Rising fuel prices have also forced gas tax receipts downward, as consumers curb nonessential driving. Where in headier times, states might have subsidized their transportation agencies out of the general fund, few states are in the financial position to do so at the current time.

To make matters worse, many states have been pouring their increasingly scarce transportation resources into projects of dubious merit.

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A Brookings report ranks the New York region 13th in transit accessibility. Can that be right?

Does the New York City region really rank only 13th in the nation in providing transit access to jobs? Has it truly been bested by a top five of Honolulu, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Tucson and Fresno? That’s what a new report from the Brookings Institution claims, but don’t worry New Yorkers, there are very good reasons to second-guess that conclusion.

The report, which Streetsblog Capitol Hill’s Tanya Snyder recapped earlier today, is an impressive piece of research. Brookings built the largest database in its long history and developed some pretty sophisticated tools to analyze it. Some of the data points that Tanya pulled out in her piece add tremendously to our understanding of the connection between transit and land use across the country. That said, when it comes to ranking the top cities, the findings are a little too counterintuitive to be true.

Notably, there appears to be a weak connection between the cities with the best transit access to jobs, as ranked by Brookings, and the cities where commuters actually use transit. New York City came in 13th in the first ranking despite being far and away the top in the latter.

According to Census data gathered by Brookings itself, 30.5 percent of New York region commuters take transit to work. Compare that to Honolulu, where only 7.5 percent of commuters ride transit, or the four runners-up at 3.1 percent, 3.0 percent, 2.5 percent and 1.3 percent. It’s not even close.

In other words, whatever Brookings is measuring in this report doesn’t seem to be particularly important for the men and women who actually decide whether to hop on a bus or in the car each morning. Whether it’s poor off-peak transit service, easy parking at home and at work, or even just transit-skeptical local cultures, something is making it so that access to jobs by transit doesn’t translate into actually making use of it.

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There’s a place just outside Houston where the vinyl siding and attached garages thin out and recede into grasslands.

The Katy Prairie, one of the country's last remaining natural grasslands and an important bird habitat, may be replaced with a highway and sprawl. Image: Houston Tomorrow

In this place — one of the country’s few remaining tall-grass prairies — something amazing happens each fall. First hundreds, then thousands, then millions of birds arrive here at Katy Prairie, an international wintering grounds for migratory birds, especially waterfowl.

Over the decades, this 1,000 square mile sanctuary has largely survived the encroachment of farmers and relentless development pressure from neighboring Houston, thanks in no small part to its dedicated supporters.

But the Katy Prairie has never faced a opponent like the Grand Parkway before. Piece by piece, the Houston area has been building a third — yes, third — bypass for the region. And much to the horror of local environmentalists, the next segment is planned to directly bisect this extraordinary habitat.

Development of this pristine land isn’t just collateral damage — it’s the point of the project. Project sponsors make no bones about it: The 15.2-mile Grand Parkway segment through Katy Prairie is a $462 million development project as much as it is a transportation project. Known as “Segment E,” it would be the third phase in a 180-mile “scenic bypass” for Houston. Each of the 11 segments is considered a separate and “independently justifiable project.”

Billy Burge of the Grand Parkway Association says right now there isn’t much need for Segment E, in terms of traffic. Burge and his colleagues don’t shy away from the fact that the project will generate more car trips and sprawl. In fact, they have what you might call a “build it and they will come” philosophy about road-building and traffic.

“There’s real demand in 15 to 17 years to have this,” said Burge, who chairs the association overseeing the project for the state and the region. “Once that link is completed, you’ll have a steady stream of traffic.”

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Chalk this up as a major victory in the livable streets movement: Thanks to a heroic effort by advocates for smart growth and rural preservation, officials in Charleston, South Carolina have unanimously rejected a plan for a half-billion-dollar highway expansion.

This $500 million project would have saved the average commuter a scant 36 seconds while decimating rural areas and creating more traffic in Charleston. Photo: Post and Courier

In an 8-0 decision late last week, Charleston County officials voted against an eight-mile highway bypass that was sure to induce sprawl and promote car-dependence. (Streetsblog covered the proposed Mark Clark Expressway, a plan to extend I-526, in a series of stories this February.)

Local media sources have reported that it might be possible for the state to continue the project without the county’s permission, under the terms of the contract between SCDOT and Charleston County. And it’s still not clear if the county will be forced to reimburse the state for the $12 million already spent on planning.

Advocates for a more livable Charleston still have a huge reason to celebrate. Josh Martin of the Coastal Conservation League called the decision “a truly amazing testament to the power of community organizing and smart growth advocacy.”

The League has been working for six years to educate the public about the negative environmental, social and financial impacts of the project. The group even developed an alternative plan to expand and redesign several intersections and corridors in lieu of the highway project.

“It’s been a long road but it’s well worth the wait,” said Martin, who added that the decision represents a “paradigm shift” in transportation planning.

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Costing at least a cold $3 billion, the CRC project and its ten freeway lanes could bankrupt the Portland region's road budget while undermining its progress on sustainable transportation. Image: Spencer Boomhower

The Columbia River Crossing is a mega-project by any standard. A bridge replacement, a highway widening, and light rail project wrapped into one, the CRC is a proposal to span the distance between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. With a $3.2 billion price tag — by conservative estimates — it would be the largest public works project the region has ever undertaken.

Any project of the CRC’s transformative scope raises a great many questions. For starters, is it worth the investment? Can the region afford it? Will it promote a healthy environment? Will it induce sprawl?

In the five years since project engineers began honing their plan, more and more local observers have become adamant that it fails on all counts. “It’s a disaster of a project, really,” said Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland. “It just doesn’t make any sense.” But while governors are killing worthy transit and rail projects left and right, this fantastically expensive sprawl generator still has a pulse.

The full length of the project is five miles. Image: Columbia River Crossing

Planning efforts alone for the Columbia River Crossing have thus far consumed $110 million. After all that expense and all those meetings, local observers say there’s still little agreement about what form it should take — or whether it should move forward at all.

The project is intended to reduce congestion on Interstate 5 between Portland and suburban Vancouver, which, officials say, backs up for six hours daily. Their plan is to expand the interstate from six to 10 lanes, demolish the existing drawbridge and build a replacement.

But $3+ billion is a lot of money to spend on a five-mile stretch of roadway, particularly when the Portland region is facing a $6 billion road budget shortfall by 2030. And at least one analysis has said the actual fiscal damage could be a lot worse.

Financial questions aside, the project runs contrary to the values of sustainability and walkability on which Portland has built its reputation, says David Osborn of the grassroots opposition group Stop the CRC. According to Osborn, the CRC typifies the kind of single-occupancy-vehicle infrastructure that the region has expressly rejected.

“We’re known for and really value alternative transportation,” Osborn said. “That’s the kind of transportation solutions that our region is looking for — transportation infrastructure that favors small, walkable communities. Building freeways doesn’t create that kind of community.”

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The owner of a patent law firm in recession-battered metro Detroit may have to leave Michigan, and it’s not because of the taxes, says Andrew Basile, Jr. His firm, which employs 40 people in the city of Troy, spends “more on copiers and toner than we do on state taxes.” The problem, Basile says, is that the firm can’t attract talent to Michigan because of the “poor quality of place” and “car culture” that prevails in the region.

In a letter to nonprofit Michigan Future, Inc., Basile vents his frustration with a leadership climate that has gone “berserk on suburbia.” (Basile is also the brains behind the Woodward Project, an initiative aimed at developing a vibrant livable center for Detroit.)

This instructive letter, sent by email under the subject line “Why our growing firm may have to leave Michigan,” explains how places like Detroit pay an economic price for lagging behind other regions on livability. Reprinted with permission of the author:

All…

Our recruiters are very blunt. They say it is almost impossible to recruit to Michigan without paying big premiums above competitive salaries on the coasts.

People – particularly affluent and educated people – just don’t want to live here. For example, below are charts of migration patterns based on IRS data. Black is inbound, red is outbound. Even though the CA economy is in very bad shape, there is still a mass migration to San Francisco vs. mass outbound migration from Oakland County (most notably to cities like SF, LA, Dallas, Atlanta, NY, DC, Boston, and Philly). San Fran only seems to be losing people to Portland, a place with even more open space and higher quality urban environments.

Net migration to San Francisco: The black lines represent inward migration and the red lines outward migration.

The situation for Michigan is even worse than it seems because those lines are net migration…

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In the 1970s, engineers drew a horseshoe around Charleston, South Carolina — the planned route for Interstate 526, also known as the Mark Clark Expressway. The highway was to extend from Mt. Pleasant in the north to James Island in the south. It was to be a traditional highway bypass, the kind that were being built across the country in those days, changing the nature of cities in profound ways.

The end of the road. Will Charleston County elect to build eight more miles of I-526, a 40-year-old idea that many local residents oppose? Photo: The Post and Courier

But Charleston never got around to completing the arc. It comes to a stop about eight miles short of its planned destination in West Ashley, leaving the rural and suburban communities ahead un-scarred.

A few years ago, however, county officials decided to complete the 40-year-old highway plan after all. They applied for, and received, $420 million from the state transportation infrastructure bank.

Since then, the state has been moving forward with plans to construct an eight-mile stretch of highway from West Ashley through rural Johns Island to James Island, crossing the Stono River twice.

Under contract to Charleston County, the South Carolina Department of Transportation has continued to beat the drum for highway expansion even in the face of mounting public outcry and the introduction of a less-costly alternative proposal. In its refusal to consider ideas that do not conform to the limited-access highway model, SC DOT has staunchly upheld the bias for highway development that afflicts state transportation authorities nationwide.

In Charleston, reception to the I-526 expansion has been chilly, and an organized and outspoken opposition movement has taken hold. Locals question whether a 70s-era highway plan is still the proper formula for this historic yet increasingly modern southern city. Opposition has been strong enough that county officials have brought the plan to a standstill while they consider alternatives. But will advocates for a different approach successfully disrupt the entrenched practices of the state DOT?

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