This article describes how the car has come to dictate land use planning, and how getting back to our roots - where the street is about community, not speed, we can solve some other social problems too.
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Rediscovering our roots can solve 21st Century traffic woes

Gary Toth, the new Director of Transportation Initiatives at PPS and a veteran of 34
years with the New Jersey Department of Transportation, reflects on how we lost our
way in traffic planning and what we can do to get back on track.

I started at the New Jersey Department of Transportation in 1973 right out of
college as a civil engineer trainee. For the first twenty years of my career as a
transportation planner, I bought into the prevailing belief of the profession that
the solution to congestion was to build more and bigger roads. We felt we were not
doing our jobs properly unless enough lanes were added to ensure free flowing
traffic 24/7/365.

I was part of a profession that for five decades viewed its mission as simply
accommodating the demands of traffic, whether on local streets or on state and
national highways. The quality of life in communities and the condition of the
environment were someone else's business; our job was to move cars and trucks as
smoothly and rapidly as possible.

Gradually my faith in this "wider, straighter, faster" paradigm of traffic planning
began to change. This occurred while I was in charge of a new unit at the New Jersey
Department of Transportation (NJDOT) that had been created to meet with communities, business owners, public agencies and other community stakeholders to seek their support for various road projects. We were supposed to reduce community resistance, which was beginning to delay and even cancel projects. But as time went on, it became clear to me that the real point of transportation projects should be building successful communities and fostering economic prosperity.

- How did we get into this jam?

Prior to the introduction of the automobile, Americans' concept of what constituted
a good road had a vastly different meaning from today. Serving the community and
creating an efficient and livable pattern of development were essential values at
the center of street design. In short, transportation was fully integrated into land
use planning.

The growing popularity of automobiles after 1910 created pressure for the federal
government to become more directly involved in financing roads. Spurred on by cries
of "Get farmers out of the mud," Congress passed the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916,
which made continuous funding available for states to make road improvements.
Motorists and other organized interests began to apply intense pressure to build
more highways. In the 1930s many American officials visited the German Autobahn
network and returned with a sense of urgency that we must create a national system
of high-speed highways. This ultimately led to federal legislation in 1944 to
establish the Interstate System and in 1956 to fund it, which ignited the great road
building era of the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Today, it is fashionable to vilify the transportation profession for ignoring the
negative effects of large-scale road building on our communities. However, two men
at the top of the transportation field during the years the Interstate highway
system was shaped--Thomas H. MacDonald, chief of the federal Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), and his top aide, Herbert S. Fairbank--warned that thoughtless planning and improperly placed roads: "will become more and more of an encumbrance to the city's functions and an all too durable reminder of planning that was bad." They recognized that a shift of population to the suburbs was beginning to take a toll on cities.

Unfortunately, the federal government ignored MacDonald and Fairbank's vision of
connecting highway development to a broader regional planning approach. As late as
1947, at the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway Officials
(now AASHTO), MacDonald urged his colleagues to do whatever they could to reverse
politicians' refusal to subsidize mass transportation. Repeatedly, however,
Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower along with Congress ignored these
sensible recommendations for an integrated and balanced transportation network in
the various federal highway acts that were enacted.

Starting in the 1950s, the transportation industry mobilized in an unprecedented way
to deliver a mandate for a new generation of highways that would eliminate hassles
and obstacles to the rapid flow of traffic. Planning in the U.S. became dominated by
transportation engineers, while citizens, advocacy groups and planners in other
fields saw their influence decline. The transportation profession was remarkably
successful in convincing two generations of politicians, developers, construction
industries, special interest groups, and the public about how things should be done.
With blinders firmly attached, the transportation planners and the nation at large
ignored mounting evidence of the unintended consequences of this huge road-building
campaign.

- The transportation profession "hits the wall"

By the early 1990s, when the Interstate Highway System-one of the biggest
construction projects in human history-was essentially completed, congestion in
urban areas was still growing worse and community opposition was stronger than ever
to new road projects. Within the transportation profession, there was a dawning
recognition that something was innately wrong with the way we think about and design
highways.

Yet not knowing any other way to operate, the transportation profession continued to
plan new road projects in the same old way: attempting to meet peak demand according
to a formula based on maintaining the free flow of traffic at the thirtieth busiest
hour of the entire year .

When the inevitable resistance from affected communities arose, state DOTs found
that invoking the "national interest", which worked so well during the Interstate
era to override community objections, was no longer effective in pushing through the
projects. By the 1990s, citizen opposition was able to bring many projects to a
standstill.

Meanwhile, evidence was mounting that the wider, straighter, and faster approach was
not solving the problem. The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), in their 2005
Urban Mobility Report, revealed that over the last two decades of the 20th century,
congestion indicators had spiraled out of control. The hours each year a motorist
spends in congestion had quadrupled.

This was occurring because of the way street and road networks were being planned.
Spread out development made possible by the new highway capacity was creating
congestion faster than transportation agencies could widen or replace failing
highways. Furthermore, mass transit could not serve the new sprawling suburbs and
street design made biking and walking all but impossible. This all caused vehicle
trips and vehicle miles to explode at a rate many times faster than population
growth. Transportation professionals and state DOTs watched these problems worsen
but stood aside and did nothing in the belief that their job was building roads and
that land use planning was someone else's responsibility.

Now it has become clear with each new fiscal year that construction costs for adding
new capacity to roads is escalating sharply at exactly the same time our aging
transportation infrastructure demands more and more attention. And in most states,
revenue sources have been flat for almost a decade. State legislatures are afraid to
mention the "T" word-- taxes. Many roads and bridges built in the highway boom years
between the 1940s and 1960s have aged to the point of needing major repairs or
replacement, creating a towering backlog of Fix-It-First projects. All of these
factors make it far less likely that even the most determeined DOTs can build their
way out of congestion.

As congestion has worsened in a transportation system focused on high speed travel,
so have other social problems. The skyrocketing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the
US is a major factor in gas consumption and CO2 emissions that spur global warming.
Our nation's public health indicators are also taking a nosedive. The National
Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 25 years ago, only two states had
obesity rates above 10%, and none had rates above 15%. Today, in a startling
turnaround, no state has less than a 10% obesity rate, and only one is below 15%.
Twenty-eight states--more than half the union--are above 20%, and one is above 25%.

The CDC classifies this rapid deterioration of public health as an "Inactivity
Epidemic", and warns us that our increasing lack of fitness brings major health
problems in addition to obesity: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, increased
symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as poorer development and maintenance of
bones and muscles. While some still dispute our transportation system's role in this
widening health crisis, new studies linking sprawl and obesity are accumulating.

- How can we get out of this jam?

1. Target the "right" capital improvement projects first
The first step is to recognize that transportation decisions make a huge impact on
land use and community planning-and vice versa. Major investments in roads should be
pursued only in communities and regions with effective land use plans in place,
which will protect the public investment in new highway capacity. With funds for
expanding our road system now at a premium, we can no longer afford to invest in
areas whose inadequate land use practices will mean the new roads are soon
overburdened. Taxpayers deserve to know that their money will be spent in ways that
solve our transportation problems-not in creating new problems. The transportation
profession itself needs to accept that road projects carry significant social and
environmental consequences. Transportation professionals need to heed Thomas
MacDonald's and Herbert Fairbank's advice from the 1930s: "Freeway location should
be coordinated with housing and city planning authorities; railroad, bus, and truck
interests; air transportation and airport officials; and any other agencies, groups,
and interests that may affect the future shape of the city." (Quote from THE GENIE
IN THE BOTTLE: The Interstate System and Urban Problems, 1939-1957 by Richard F.
Weingroff)

2. Make Placemaking and far-sighted land-use planning central to transportation
decisions
Traffic planners and public officials need to foster land use planning at the
community level, which supports instead of overloads a state's transportation
network. This includes creating more attractive places that people will want to
visit in both existing developments and new ones. A strong sense of place benefits
the overall transportation system. Great Places - popular spots with a good mix of
people and activities, which can be comfortably reached by foot, bike and perhaps
transit as well as cars - put little strain on the transportation system. Poor
land-use planning, by contrast, generates thousands of unnecessary vehicle-trips,
creating dysfunctional roads, which further worsens the quality of the places.
Transportation professionals can no longer pretend that land use is not our
business. Road projects that were not integrated into land use planning have created
too many negative impacts to ignore.

3. Re-envision single-use zoning
We also must shift planning regulations that treat schools, grocery stores,
affordable housing and shops as undesirable neighbors. The misguided logic of
current zoning codes calls for locating these amenities as far away from residential
areas as possible. Locating these essential services along busy state and local
highways creates needless traffic and gangs local traffic atop of commuting and
regional traffic, thus choking the capacity of the road system.

4. Get more mileage out of our roads
The 19th and early 20th Century practice of creating connected road networks, still
found in many beloved older neighborhoods, can help us beat 21st century congestion.
Mile for mile, a finely-woven dense grid of connected streets has much more carrying
capacity than a sparse, curvilinear tangle of unconnected cul-de-sacs, which forces
all traffic out to the major highways. Unconnected street networks, endemic to
post-World War II suburbs, do almost nothing to promote mobility.

5. View streets as places
Streets take up as much as a third of a community's land. Yet, under planning
policies of the past 70 years, people have given up their rights to this public
property. While streets were once a place where we stopped for conversation and
children played, they are now the exclusive domain of cars. Even the sidewalks along
highways and high-speed local streets feel inhospitable.But there is a new movement
to look at streets in the broader context of communities (see the Federal Highway
Administration's website on Context-Sensitive Solutions.) It's really a rather
simple idea-streets need to be designed in a way that induces traffic speeds
appropriate for that particular context. Freeways should remain high-speed roads but
on other roads and streets we need to take into account that these are places for
people as well as conduits for cars.

6. Think outside the lane
Last but not least, the huge costs of eliminating traffic jams at hundreds of
locations throughout a state will allow for only a few congestion hot spots to be
fixed by big engineering projects each year. That means that most communities must
wait decades or even a century for a solution to their problems unless we adopt a
new approach that incorporates land use planning, community planning and alternative
modes of transportation to address ever increasing volumes of traffic.

- A new approach to transportation for a new century

The transportation profession responded to a mandate from government officials in
the post-World War II era to build a new generation of highways for public mobility
and national defense. They should be commended for a job well done. A new generation
of solutions is needed for the 21st Century, however, and this well-organized and
well-trained profession should apply its talents to help us adapt to these new
realities. We need a new vision of transportation that truly improves our mobility,
sustains our communities, protects our environment and helps restore our physical
fitness and health.

The transportation profession can no longer respond to mounting levels of congestion
as well as community and environmental dilemmas by trying to widen existing roads or
build new ones. New highways are now packed with cars almost as soon as they open.
And today there is simply not the money available for that kind of large-scale road
building. Most states can't even keep up with the backlog of repair projects.

When I was at NJDOT, we came to realize the 1950s were long past and that we needed
a new approach to meet the needs of our citizens. So we began collaborating with the
public on solutions that took into account the whole context of communities being
served by a particular road--the approach known as Context Sensitive Solutions. Like
most people we initially believed that Americans were in love with the automobile
and would demand we continue to provide them with bigger, faster roads separated
from shopping and neighborhoods. While we did find this response in some
communities, we were surprised by how many more communities firmly supported better
land-use and community planning.

Americans may always love their automobiles, but that does not mean we want to spend
all day stuck inside them. Transportation systems which afford Americans the choice
of getting to places without using their cars actually offer more freedom than those
where people are solely dependent on the auto to get anywhere. People easily
understand this, and can see that a transportation network catering exclusively to
cars has harmed our communities, compromised our health, fueled the environmental
crisis and made us dependent on foreign oil.

There is nothing un-American about planning communities as a whole, and
acknowledging that roads are just one of the elements that create a livable place.
This was the common sense that guided our communities until at least 1920. While
pre-20th Century community planners were by no means perfect, they did create places
where transportation was integrated into broader public hopes. The roads and bridges
in these areas were built to foster economic development and quality of life in the
community, not to hamper it.

If we are to really embrace the concept of healthy, livable communities that serve a
diverse population and that make choices for mobility a priority, then we must
integrate our transportation planning with other goals and we must design our roads
for all users. In short, we must capitalize on the wisdom of our roots.

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PPS Partners with Bass Foundation on Far-Reaching Transportation Initiative

Earlier this year, the Bass Foundation partnered with PPS to define "how" and "what"
new resources and technical assistance are needed, in the long-term, to help
transportation planners design and plan roads differently. This newly-formed
resource team, led by Gary Toth and supported by a small coalition of regional DOTs,
will be oriented towards helping agencies deliver their programs, and solve
congestion problems without major investment projects which most states can no
longer afford.

PPS is assembling resources to assist DOTs in the following areas: Integrating
transportation and land use planning; Collaborative interaction and partnering with
communities; Context Sensitive Solutions; Placemaking to support good transportation
outcomes; and Ecologically sustainable, low impact solutions for highway roadsides
and drainage.

For more information, please email Gary Toth, Director of Transportation
Initiatives: gtoth@pps.org.

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Who is Gary Toth?

Gary Toth recently joined Project for Public Spaces as Senior Director for
Transportation Initiatives after 34 years as an engineer and Director of Project
Planning and Development with the New Jersey Department of Transportation. He gained
national attention for his pioneering work in Context Sensitive Solutions, an
innovative approach that views road projects from the broader perspective of
mobility and community issues. At New Jersey DOT, he was recognized for his
collaboration and facilitation skills, and became one of the chief architects in
transforming the agency to work in an inclusive way that brings a wide variety of
stakeholders into the process of project planning.

Toth now leads a resource team at PPS that helps transportation professionals find
21st Century solutions to improve mobility and strengthen communities.

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Announcing "Streets as Places": A Transportation Training Seminar
http://www.pps.org/training/info/transportation_training_course

PPS is launching a new transportation training seminar, November 29-30 in New York
City. Register today and learn new ways of thinking about streets as public spaces
and how Placemaking can build great streets and great communities.

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Making Places Bulletin is an email update featuring timely commentary from Project
for Public Spaces that supplements our regular web newsletter.

Contact us: email pps@pps.org or call (212) 620-5660

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PPS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public spaces
that build communities. We provide technical assistance, training, research and
other services. Since our founding in 1975, we have worked in over 1,500 communities
in the United States and around the world, helping people turn their public spaces
into vital community places.

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