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Volpe Center Highlights - January/February 2003

Mobility and Economic Growth

Director's Notes | Focus | Safety | Mobility and Economic Growth
Human and Natural Environment | Organizational Excellence | Homeland Security
Awards | Papers and Presentations

Integrating Land Use and Transportation Policies (FHWA)

Designing transportation systems that enhance mobility, economic opportunity, and community livability is a major challenge for many communities across the country. Increasingly, political leaders, planning professionals, and private citizens are becoming aware of the connections between transportation planning and land-use policies. Transportation infrastructure and land-use guidelines create the framework in which communities grow, influencing urban and rural development, economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social equity. In many states, however, transportation and land-use policies are often considered separately, a disassociation that can lead to inefficient resource use and excessive environmental impact.

The Volpe Center recently supported an effort sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to learn from projects in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming aimed at successfully integrating land-use and transportation planning. Most of the projects have received funds from the Transportation and Community and System Preservation Pilot (TCSP) Program, a grant program established by TEA-21 to assist communities with the planning and implementation of policies intended to address the relationship between transportation, land use, public infrastructure, and private-sector initiatives.

The project visits (known as a "Scan Tour") enabled the team members to collect, synthesize, and distribute information on best practices in transportation and land-use planning. All four projects are in high-growth areas and aim to reduce detrimental growth patterns and preserve existing infrastructure as well as environmental and community assets.

Rehabilitation of Union Station in Denver, Colorado, will increase transportation options and create an urban transportation hub.

Ms. Cassandra C. Allwell and Ms. Katherine Fichter, both of the Planning and Policy Analysis Division, represent the Volpe Center on this project. Joining them on the Scan Tour team were three FHWA staff members; the Director of the Charlottesville Metropolitan Planning Organization; and the Assistant Director of the Planning and Development Department of Houston. The team members visited the following projects:

• Denver Union Station Work and Entertainment Connection, Colorado
• Stapleton Airfield Redevelopment, Colorado (not a TCSP project)
• Envision Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Mapping for a Millennium, Teton County, Wyoming.

Each of these projects established innovative planning mechanisms for the coordination of transportation and land-use policies. The following lessons can be drawn from their challenges and opportunities.

• Planning solutions should be developed and supported locally.
• Planning efforts that fail to include sufficient public outreach and participation are unlikely to succeed.
• Creative planning efforts should find ways to present ideas, particularly contentious ideas, in locally acceptable language and context.
• Well-considered physical design is as important as good planning.
• Funding should be regularly calculated and reviewed to most effectively leverage all available resources.
• The local development climate will strongly influence efforts to coordinate transportation and land-use planning.
• Innovative planning ideas can eclipse established processes and regulations, requiring old policies to be revised and updated.

Community planning will address the impact of increased recreational visitors and part-time residents on Teton County, Wyoming.

The team's draft report was approved in late December. It details the findings of the Scan Tour, including lessons learned and ideas for use in other sustainable growth projects around the country. The final report is scheduled for submittal in late winter 2003.

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