Smart Growth and Transportation: Issues and Lessons Learned (2005)

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Breakout Sessions 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 165

63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 166

1 6 7 What a Smart Growth Transportation System Looks Like Breakout Session Report INSTRUCTIONS Harrison Bright Rue, Jefferson Planning District Commission To quote my favorite mayor, Maui Mayor James “Kim” Alana, our land was not given to us by our parents and grandparents. It is on loan to us from our children and grandchildren. Of course, that was handed down from Thomas Jefferson and we now know that he ripped it off from the Iroquois Confederacy’s planning for seven generations. Today’s question is, What did you hear this morning that you would like to try in your region? You can bring ideas in from somewhere else too, but start off thinking about the ones we already talked about today. What impediments do you face? We are going to ask you to do that in the first session—20 to 30 minutes. Then you will report back on the impediments. Then we will reconvene and put it back to you to brainstorm the solutions. Some simple rules: You are agreeing to work together, not to agree on everything. We don’t have the money to build everything anyway, so we can only build what you agree on. Try to generate innovative solutions that address those real problems you identify. Keep it simple. Be creative during the brainstorming. You have to wait a couple minutes to shoot down the idiot’s idea. So, while you are brainstorming, let it flow. Then refine the ideas during discussion. We are not going to expect a final product. You are just looking for some doable things you can take back to your region. The consensus is on the potential solutions. I think you will find that even if you have personal favorites at the beginning, you will probably agree at the end. I want to remember the “hat’s off” rule. You might be sitting next to somebody else from your area. You are taking your official hat off so that even if you are sitting next to your boss, you do not have to worry about whether you are being too “out there.” Even when you get the top 200 executives in the Department of Transportation together, they follow this same principle. Break up to organize into smaller groups, six to eight per group. Work together to generate the ideas. Try and solve the problems. Summarize your ideas and report back. First, introduce yourselves to each other and then note what you’ve been working on in your region that is related to what is going on, and then take off from there and ask yourselves the first question. At the end, we are going to ask you to review what you produced, see if you covered anything, if anybody’s idea was missed. Then one of you will report back. QUESTION: WHAT ARE THE IMPEDIMENTS TO SMART GROWTH? Overarching Impediments • While a region may have a vision, costs to implement it are prohibitive. • Incorrect assumptions about modal choices (i.e., will people really walk, bike, and use transit?). 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 167

• Lack of funding. • Housing prices: infill housing tends to be expensive. • While the public generally wants mobility, specific neighborhoods focus on design issues. • “Transit versus road” argument: people get bogged down in this argument when the issue should be design. • Car culture: Americans are reluctant to reduce driving and car ownership. • Perception that high density means slums. • Race and class issues: people prefer to live near others of their own race and class. • Focus is on serving through traffic instead of to traffic. Institutional Impediments • Segmentation of staff and agencies. • Fragmentation of responsibility and decision making; not always clear who is responsible. • Suspicion of government by the public. • Disconnect between land use and transportation planning. Public Involvement Impediments • Need to include the public early in the process. • Public doesn’t understand what their choices are. • Lack of good/accessible visualization tools. • NIMBYism (not in my backyard): People oppose development in their neighborhoods. • Lack of effective techniques for engaging the public. • Difficulty of bringing together polarized positions to achieve a common vision. Transit Service Impediments • Transit has a poor public image. • Most service is radial; transit service changes are needed to accommodate suburb-to-suburb travel. Tools Impediments • Cost of tools (for both modeling and visualiza- tion) is prohibitive for nongovernmental organizations and small communities. • Cost to provide incentives may be prohibitive. Land Use Alternatives Impediments • Smart growth may be interpreted as loss of local control. • Perception that smart growth may interfere with free- dom to live anywhere; may smack of social engineering. • Lack of incentives for infill. • Insufficient market understanding. • High costs and time constraints to infill development. • Local land use regulations are more lax on the fringe. Regional Issues • Political power has shifted to suburbs, and they may oppose smart growth. • Lack of regional vision or support from local government agencies (county and city). • Communities focus on getting their fair share, not on regional planning. • Transportation policy is not effectively linked to the provision of housing. • Winners and losers in the regional process are often measured by the regional tax base. • Difficulty of getting people to think on a regional level. • In large regions, difficulty balancing the needs across a region. • Many municipalities have local land use control. Tax and Financial Issues • Lack of funding flexibility. • Concerns about tax base. • Financial community is risk averse and may not lend to certain projects. • Tax structure supports growth at the fringe. • Government subsidies and policies may have unintended consequences. HOW CAN THESE IMPEDIMENTS BE OVERCOME? Overarching Solutions • Education. • Create missionaries or champions of smart growth. • Expose subsidies for sprawl. • Increase public awareness of current plans. • Help the public answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Institutional Solutions • Find interdisciplinary champions; these could include a political appointee, elected official, or permanent staff. 1 6 8 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 168

• Change governmental subsidies and policies to reflect smart growth priorities (such as the Maryland Priority Growth Areas). • Legislate required coordination between land use and transportation agencies. • Provide leadership (for example, AASHTO could step up). • Mandate state involvement in local or community planning and fund it (i.e., at the master planning level). • Streamline the development process in target areas. Public Involvement Solutions • Communicate the advantages of accessibility. • Be clear about the vision and goals. • Use marketing to garner public involvement. • Give a voice to the YIMBYs (people who support development: yes, in my backyard). • Increase the public’s sense of ownership. • Publicize successes, because success breeds success. • Use visualization and public surveys to get the public on board and to guide decision making. • Create more community-oriented planning and investment programs with federal transportation funding. • Enlist citizen planners. • Be inclusive from the beginning; don’t leave anyone out of the process. Tools Solutions • Improve modeling techniques (for example, mod- els shouldn’t assume people make housing decisions on the basis of transportation alone). • Build toolbox for small projects, including virtual reality, access management, and connectivity. • Develop lots of visual examples of good design. • Back up visualization tools with data. • Develop a standard set of low-cost tools for modeling and visualization. • Develop local plans such that they can be combined into a regional plan. • Standardize inputs (for comparative and integrated planning purposes). • Build programs around small projects. • Develop and publicize successful case studies or “best practices.” • Use context-sensitive design solutions, such as traffic calming and modern roundabouts. • Carry local and through traffic on the same roads with segmented design. • Implement carsharing. Transit Service Solutions • Engage transit agencies in new thinking. • Improve the perceived poor quality of transit service, including faster service, on-time service, clean vehicles and facilities, the accommodation of suburb-to-suburb trips, and increased safety. Land Use Solutions • Adopt enabling smart growth legislation at state, regional, and local levels. Regional Solutions • Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) should take advantage of their ability to create regional solutions. • Create lots of examples of good design. • Integrate local visions into the regional plan through regional cooperation. Tax and Financial Solutions • Enhance flexible funding at both the state DOT level and the MPO level. • Tie funding decisions to the regional vision/goals. • Provide incentive and rewards for “delightful places”; these could be financial, regulatory, and amenities incentives, or reinvestment. • Allocate federal funding to MPOs and local agencies directly. • Use federal funding for community planning. • Eliminate restrictions on federal programs. • Reduce the risk of building smart to developers. • Create disincentives to long-distance single-occupant vehicle travel. • Reform property taxes (split rate, regional tax sharing) to reduce disincentives for jurisdictions to create housing. • Implement parking cash-out programs. 1 6 9BREAKOUT SESSIONS 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 169

1 7 0 The Different Transportation Looks of Smart Growth Breakout Session Report Breakout sessions were held to consider smartgrowth in three separate development environ-ments: urban infill, suburban redevelopments, and fringe developments. Each of these groups was asked four questions: • What are the key transportation program ele- ments needed in each of these areas—the urban, the suburban, and the fringe? • What are the challenges smart growth faces in each of these areas? • How does the situation in each of these areas differ from that in other areas? • How do you measure what is “smart”? The items below were raised in the breakout groups. URBAN INFILL AREA BREAKOUT SESSION What are the key transportation program elements needed in each of these areas? • Core areas need everything—transit, walking, bicycling, parking, and taxis—but integrating them is complex. • Design is critical. • Special concerns: delivery vehicles, pedestrians, parking management. What are the challenges smart growth faces in your type of area? • NIMBYism (not in my backyard); opposition to new development (people may feel density is already high enough). • Difficulty of right-of-way acquisition (unavailable or prohibitively expensive). • Declining areas may take any kind of growth, and bad decisions come back to haunt them. • Difficulty of equity issues. • Fear of cities (perceptions of crime, low standard of living, etc.). • Costs of redevelopment are high. • Despite living in high-density areas, people still want to own cars. • Need different standards than in suburban areas. How does the situation in your area differ from that in other areas? • Tends to have shorter trip lengths. • Common to have paid parking. • People need choices such as taxis and carshares. • More diversity and density. • People demand a wide array of choices. How do you measure what is “smart”? • Percentage of people living downtown or near transit. • Accessibility. • Infrastructure costs per capita. • Spending on transportation. • Vehicle miles of travel (VMT). 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 170

• Mode split. • Number of cars. • Transit seamlessness (reduced travel time, minimal transfers or smoother transfers). SUBURBAN PANEL BREAKOUT SESSION What are the transportation program elements needed in each of these areas? • Establish/maintain community centers. • Provide mobility for older people. • Provide walking/bicycling options. • Retrofit roads while maintaining service. • Provide good access to schools. • Allow pricing mechanism to signal appropriate transportation choices. What are the challenges smart growth faces in your type of area? • Difficulty in communicating to local developers. • Difficulty in changing zoning. • Insufficient funding. • Inflexible zoning. • Making changes that meet the demand of the public. • Difficulty in conceptualizing change over a long period of time. How does the situation in your area differ from that in other areas? • Fringe areas: newer; greater flexibility; less appro- priate for transit; land use emerging. • Suburban areas: fewer options to change patterns; need for redevelopment; opportunity to change things during redevelopment; established land use patterns. • Core areas: chance to redevelop; transit more vital. How do you measure what is “smart”? • Air quality. • Consumer satisfaction. • Modal split. • Transportation options. • Jobs/housing balance. • Land consumption. • VMT per capita. • Protection of green space. • Adequate housing. • Accessibility: how much area is accessible in a certain amount of time. • Nonmotorist mobility. • Sense of community. FRINGE BREAKOUT SESSION What are the transportation program elements needed in each of these areas? • A vision and a way for citizens to visualize it. • Education process for volunteers, elected officials, and staff. • Cluster system as a way to deal with desire for space and need for density. • Transitional plans—think about walking and transit up front, while recognizing that may take years to implement. • Preserve right-of-way/connectivity. • Specific transportation elements: –Gridded streets –Access management –Through movement separated from local access –Support alternative modes through crosswalks and bus pullouts –Bikeways (may be disagreement whether bicyclists are better served with paths or on-road lanes) • Leadership elements: –Trust (parties need to trust each other) –Facilitators can help run meetings –Meeting style and format can affect outcome What are the challenges smart growth faces in your type of area? • Skeletal transportation network; few transit options. • Elected people may not be well educated on the issues. • Lack of professional staff (fringe areas are more likely to have part-time and volunteer staff, who may be overwhelmed on a policy level). • Accomplishing smart growth depends on relation- ships with neighboring communities. • Political culture may be antiplanning. • Cities haven’t done any financial analysis, so they don’t recognize costs of growth. • Smaller jurisdictions don’t like to engage in regional discussions. • No understanding yet that they need something other than highways. • Lack of transit agency long-range planning to go along with land use planning. • Lack of transit resources—fringe areas are last to receive transit service. • Tax structure drives agricultural land into devel- opment use. How does the situation in your area differ from that in other areas? • No infill issues. 1 7 1BREAKOUT SESSIONS 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 171

• Lots of space and developable land. • Smaller role for transit than in other areas. • Economic incentives to develop in outlying areas. • Chance to do it right the first time—not bound by past mistakes. • Skeletal roadway network. • Much faster growth rate (at least for next 10 years—may change with demographics). • Can lead to faster implementation of smart growth policies. How do you measure what is “smart”? • Quality of life. • Shorter trip length. • Attractive public spaces. • Sense of community. • Town center. • Walk trips. • Sustainability definition. • Accessibility or mobility. • Safe and convenient. • Number of people within walking distance of bus stop. 1 7 2 SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION: ISSUES AND LESSONS LEARNED 63805_165_184 4/7/05 3:46 AM Page 172