An Amtrak passenger train heads back to Chicago with a heavy load of passengers. Photo by David Johnson and NARP

Transportation is the backbone of smart growth. The structure of the transportation network is the skeleton which supports smart growth or sprawling development. Learn about the problem, and potential solutions, below:

TRANSPORTATION & SPRAWL
SMART TRANSPORTATION
FEDERAL POLICIES THAT ENCOURAGE TRANSPORATION CHOICE

Transportation & Sprawl

Until recently, the transportation system primarily supported sprawl. The almost single-minded focus on highway development from the 1950s through the 1980s encouraged spread-out housing, and made it easy for businesses to locate in remote office parks, far from traditional, walkable downtowns. As a result, the automobile became almost the only way to travel, and traffic increased exponentially, bringing with it congestion and frustration. Sixty-nine percent of the increase in traffic can be attributed to factors associated with sprawl.

Attempts to ease congestion with road-building have been only temporarily effective; communities that have built the most roads have had no more success in keeping congestion in check than areas that have not added much road capacity – and in some cases less. Automobile-oriented transportation is also expensive: most Americans spend more on transportation than on health care, education or food, and those costs are highest in the most sprawling metropolitan areas.

Most of us like to think of America as a land of choices. Yet in just about any community built in the last 50 years, when it comes to transportation there is only one choice: to own a car and use it for every single activity of the day. In this environment, those who try other ways of getting around do so at their peril: the most sprawling places have proven the most dangerous for people who use the simplest form of transportation of all, walking.

Wide, high-speed arterials are dangerous for foot or bicycle traffic, while winding subdivision streets that end in cul-de-sacs don’t provide the direct access that makes walking convenient (or driving, for that matter). Large subdivisions with one way in and out dump all their traffic onto overloaded arterial roads and make it difficult to provide bus service that comes within a reasonable distance of homes. And spread-out homes and offices make it tough for people to find convenient vanpool or carpool partners

The heavy reliance on driving that sprawl requires has an impact far beyond today’s traffic jam.

For more on the equity issues in transportation, such as how poor, minority, or elderly Americans are disadvantaged by the current system, see the Social Equity section of this website.

Smart Transportation

Land use comes first, then transportation. You build the transportation network to serve the kind of development pattern you want. You don’t just build roads and watch what happens.

What does a ‘smart growth’ transportation system look like? Smart Growth transportation provides choice and convenience, and is coordinated with the way the community is growing. The movement already is catching on in many places. Communities such as Dallas, Denver and Salt Lake City have built new transit systems and seen ridership exceed projections. Other communities have put some highways on a “road diet”, taking unneeded lane space for amenities such as sidewalks, plantings, express buses or bicycles. Below we’ve listed some primary features of smart transportation:

Transit Oriented Development puts bus and train stops at the center of communities, so that housing, offices, and shops are all within walking distance. People have more opportunities to live or work near a bus or train, and to run errands, on foot, on their way to or from the bus and train. Walking Gets Priority Smart growth communities are often designed first for walking. They feature a grid street pattern that makes it easy to make direct connections on foot; while sidewalks, traffic circles, and other devices slow automobile traffic and maintain a safe walking environment. Many developers try to locate essential services, such as a corner store or a bus stop, within a few miles of all homes, to encourage walking. Bicycle-Friendly Communities The Bicycle Friendly Community Campaign is an awards program that recognizes municipalities that actively support bicycling. A Bicycle-Friendly Community provides safe accommodation for cycling and encourages its residents to bike for transportation and recreation.

For more information, read the Great American Station Foundation’s paper, Transit Oriented Development: Moving from Rhetoric to Reality, (PDF) found under "Programs and Grants." For more on traffic calming, see www.bicyclefriendlycommunity.org Learn more from the League of American Bicyclists

Better Road Design

A new book by the Congress for the New Urbanism, Civilizing Downtown Highways, shows that local leaders in California are winning the right to influence the design of state highways in their communities. For California residents, that means more walkable main streets, and fewer freeway-style thoroughfares in the center of town.

Federal Policies that Encourage Transportation Choice

Federal transportation policy is a powerful determinant of local and regional land use through highway, transit and other investments. In fact, a 1999 Fannie Mae Foundation survey of leading urban scholars ranked the Interstate Highway System to be the strongest influence in shaping metropolitan development patterns in the past half century. Transportation also has a substantial impact on Americans’ quality of life, from access to employment to environmental quality.

Federal Transportation Law: SAFETEA-LU

In 1991, Congress passed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), which ended the focus of Federal transportation policy on building the Interstate Highway System, and made it possible for communities to use federal transportation money on a broader range of transportation investments. This gave communities the power to improve their quality of life by allowing for more transportation choices. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which passed in 1998, reauthorized ISTEA, and was subsequently replaced by SAFETEA-LU in 2005, which guides today's Federal transportation policy -- and was mostly famous for its record-breaking amount of earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere. In 2009, the Federal Transportation Bill will have to be reauthorized, but the process has already begun.

To learn more about how transportation funding & policy work, see STPP’s series, Decoding Transportation Policy and Practice.

Other federal Initiatives:

- Commuter Benefits
- High-Speed rail

Transportation For America

Transportation for America is a broad coalition of individuals, organizations, public officials, government agencies and businesses from across the nation who have joined forces to bring about a new approach to transportation that betters serves people and their communities. The coalition is concerned that the pressing issues of our time are creating an urgent need for a national dialogue about our country’s future. Our focus is on creating a closer alignment between transportation investments and an array of issues high on the public agenda -- climate change, energy security, economic competitiveness, housing and community development -- as a way to enhance sustainability and quality of life for all. Learn more about Transportation For America at www.t4america.org.