Officials merge planning with sustainability

While transportation policy is focused on basic “blocking and tackling,” officials have taken a longer perspective to integrate projects with broader initiatives in the areas of sustainability and resiliency, which is defined as the ability to recover from natural disasters.

“Investments today help us build today to sustain the future environment that we face,” Monahan says. “We can be better prepared to sustain a hurricane in the future.”

Guzzetti says that every year 37 million metric tons of carbon emissions and 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline are saved because of public transportation use in the United States, as transit systems reduce automobile trips, congregate new construction around transit stations and ease congestion. “There is more room to grow savings,” he says.

Baxandall would also like to use the funding discussion as an opportunity to rethink policy on a broader level and capture shifts in transportation patterns among younger adults. According to Baxandall’s research, from 2006 to 2011, the average number of miles driven per resident fell in almost three-quarters of American’s largest urbanized areas. At the same time, most urban areas have seen increases in public transit use and bicycle commuting and decreases in the share of households owning a car.

Those changes are seen most among Millenials, young people between the ages of 16 to 34, a group which has special significance in how transportation policy should be developed, he says. Baxandall’s findings show the average number of vehicle miles traveled between 2001 to 2009 for that group decreased by 23 percent, while the number of passenger miles on public transit increased by 40 percent. He notes that some of those patterns were becoming evident even before the recession hit.

“Change in driving patterns has been most pronounced among Millennials,” he says. “These are the people that transportation planners should be thinking about when they decide whether to build or not to build a highway.”
While most of those new driving patterns are taking place in cities, there is also a notable reduction in rural areas, as populations shift to more urban areas and natural aging takes place. In addition, efficiency-minded drivers in those areas are also combining trips, which makes a difference over the long term, he says.

As an example, Baxandall points to the cool reception in the Austin, Texas area to State Highway 130, a new toll road that was built to relieve traffic around the city. Even though the highway has the highest posted speed limit in the nation, at 85 miles per hour, traffic has been so far below expectations that revenue shortfalls are forcing a refinancing of the road’s financial structure. Still, the road’s operator is confident that traffic will make the road financially successful.

“There are deep impulses to building new highways despite what the facts tell them,” Baxandall says. “We need to realize that the driving boom is over.”

Technology shaping transportation

Even as driving habits are changing, technology is assuming an increasing role in how transportation works, which will result in important differences in how Americans get around, according to Belcher of ITSA. “We’re at an important stage in transportation,” he says. “A lot of important things are coming together to create changes that we haven’t previously seen.”

Belcher says more of the innovation in transportation is coming out of Silicon Valley than in state transportation departments, because of the nature of experimentation in the technology world. While public servants are naturally risk-averse because they have to be conscious about taking care of public money, entrepreneurs accept that several failures are the price to be paid for big and profitable success.

Out of this world come innovations like autonomous and semi-autonomous cars that rely on computers to guide a vehicle rather than a driver. Technology is also enabling new systems like car-sharing, as well as improving “old” systems like making bus riding more reliable, as real-time information and integration with mapping essentially eliminate the need for bus schedules.

Technology is also improving the daily urban commute – as well as improving safety on rural roads – by monitoring traffic on highways and adjusting speed limits and toll charges to smooth out traffic flow, which also has the benefit of reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

In the not-too-distant future, information passed between cars will help prevent accidents by warning about traffic hazards several cars ahead, thus helping to eliminate the large pileups that occur during winter snowstorms.

Belcher sees those innovations as part of the solution to the financial battles being played out in Congress, as less money is available to expand and improve the nation’s transportation system. “People are going to realize that they don’t have the money to add a lot of miles,” he says. “We’re going to have to use technology to leverage the existing system.”

While all of those trends are taking place in the background, the primary focus is on moving the funding bill forward on Capitol Hill, which is essential for the operation of local government, says Riki Hokama, a council member of Maui County, Hawaii, and the incoming president of NACo.

“We need this bill for a strong local economy, to move our food from the rural areas to the urban centers and to maintain our national defense,” he says. “We want Congress to know that they have a strong local partner, and we want to make sure that they understand that we need a long-term solution.”

Click here to read about Minnesota’s light rail project, The Green Line, which is helping connect the twin cities.

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