Transportation Infrastructure

[American Planning Association]

Discuss the condition and challenges facing transportation infrastructure in your area.

[Melissa Guilbeau]

We are and seem to have always been in a reactive mode, always trying to play catch-up to transportation needs. We are still relying on road project lists that were established decades ago. I'm sure this is nothing unique. But as we are playing catch-up, we continue to build and widen roads as our only solution to traffic congestion, and view improvements for other transportation modes as taking away valuable dollars from road projects. The situation is compounded by the predominance of low-density land uses, and the inability of leadership to recognize the connection between land use and transportation and to embrace a vision for the future that is not auto-dominated.

I know that covered a lot of different topics, but if only it were as simple as a lack of funding!

[Kent Hurst]

Perhaps we should take a deep breath and envision a future that is truly sustainable instead of continuing to invest in the one proven to be unsustainable. It will most certainly be intellectually and behaviorally challenging, but ... why not? It certainly beats kicking the ball down the road to be met once again in a few years. Let's embrace a future that will deliver us from the clutches of climate change (if that is still possible) and prioritizes quality over quantity of life.

Not as simple as lack of funding. Only allocation.

Melissa Guilbeau said:

We are and seem to have always been in a reactive mode, always trying to play catch-up to transportation needs. We are still relying on road project lists that were established decades ago. I'm sure this is nothing unique. But as we are playing catch-up, we continue to build and widen roads as our only solution to traffic congestion, and view improvements for other transportation modes as taking away valuable dollars from road projects. The situation is compounded by the predominance of low-density land uses, and the inability of leadership to recognize the connection between land use and transportation and to embrace a vision for the future that is not auto-dominated.

I know that covered a lot of different topics, but if only it were as simple as a lack of funding!

[ajay nair]

"Rail-ization" of inter-state/metro travel with fuel efficient and fast modern rail cars...is long due.
Compare and contast the impact and land use changes, transit centers, economic opporunity it povided in europe, japan, korea...We could learn and correct many mistakes and envision new fuel efficient faster rail designs..create 'smart transit' hubs..and so on..That reduces some % the automobiles on highways and less carbon, less dependant on imported oil..As incentives for rail riders, give subsidised coupons for battery-run economy size rental cars..


Kent Hurst said:

Perhaps we should take a deep breath and envision a future that is truly sustainable instead of continuing to invest in the one proven to be unsustainable. It will most certainly be intellectually and behaviorally challenging, but ... why not? It certainly beats kicking the ball down the road to be met once again in a few years. Let's embrace a future that will deliver us from the clutches of climate change (if that is still possible) and prioritizes quality over quantity of life.

Not as simple as lack of funding. Only allocation.

Melissa Guilbeau said:

We are and seem to have always been in a reactive mode, always trying to play catch-up to transportation needs. We are still relying on road project lists that were established decades ago. I'm sure this is nothing unique. But as we are playing catch-up, we continue to build and widen roads as our only solution to traffic congestion, and view improvements for other transportation modes as taking away valuable dollars from road projects. The situation is compounded by the predominance of low-density land uses, and the inability of leadership to recognize the connection between land use and transportation and to embrace a vision for the future that is not auto-dominated.

I know that covered a lot of different topics, but if only it were as simple as a lack of funding!

[Kent Hurst]

There is no question that our policy aversion to publicly funded transit must end, and that rail (in all its forms and scales) must be a significant part of the mobility solution. However, your comment raises an important point regarding our suburban aversion to bus transit. Assuming rail transit connecting appropriate population/employment centers, we must still provide the fine-grained connectivity that bus transit provides. That I can get from downtown Fort Worth to downtown Dallas via rail matters not if I cannot connect to my ultimate destination.

You also hint at the role car sharing initiatives might have in providing this flexible connectivity. Great idea, but capacity-limited and it really doesn't address the fundamental issue of getting cars off the road and reducing demand for highway capacity. Bus transit needs some good PR (and high gas prices)!

[Don Threewitt]

The fundamental challenges facing Small Towns and Rural areas are issues of equity and scale. Even when transportation funding promotes intensive local public transit, it will do little to solve the challenges of a rural America that does not have sufficient population density to generate adequate returns on transit investment. The proposal of using a competitive grant process with a “rigorous cost-benefit analysis” for federally-funded projects will virtually eliminate rural areas from participation. However, the idea of a Heartland Development Bank is attractive.
One primary asset that small towns and rural communities have is the capacity for innovation. That is, the capacity to test new technologies and infrastructure solutions on a smaller scale prior to its implementation in larger cities. Initiatives like water diversion, biofiltration, trash to electricity programs, wind and solar generation and distribution, coal gasification and the like are projects that can be field tested in rural communities prior to metropolitan implementation. And, these are just the current projects in my own backyard.
Alternative-to-the-alternative transportation networks should be sought, implemented, and assessed. Regional connections among communities with low capacities are critical. The key impediment to multi-modal alternative transportation in rural areas is one of density. Thus, the private automobile is the only cost effective means of getting from point A to B. With the impending escalation of the fuel crisis—both market and policy driven, there will be a substantial burden and further decline in quality of life for rural communities; where vehicle miles travelled will always be high. Has anyone seen this pressing issue explored in significant scale?