4.1 Sustainable Solutions
As noted previously, road building does not alleviate congestion in the long term and has detrimental environmental and social impacts. However, there are mitigating strategies to reduce dependencies on road building, diminish congestion, encourage sustainable transportation, and promote mobility across the social spectrum. The American Society of Civil Engineers (2004) classifies these strategies in six categories:
1. Reducing private vehicle use (i.e., car sharing, fuel taxes),
2. Improving public transportation,
3. Improving transport options for the public (i.e., non-motorized options like bicycles),
4. Using innovative land use strategies to reduce travel demand (i.e., transport-oriented development),
5. Reducing vehicle emissions and fuel consumption, and
6. Using “integrated approaches that combine multiple strategies.”
The sixth category in the preceding list is the principle of greatest consequence. Isolated policies cannot favorably impact urban transportation challenges as well as integrated policies that cover a realm of scenarios.
Furthermore, solutions to traffic congestion and subsequent environmental degradation problems may be approached from both the individual user side (e.g., selecting alternative fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles, car sharing) or from a larger infrastructure and programmatic or planning side (e.g., land use strategies, higher gasoline taxes, preserved wildlife corridors). In the list above, only numbers 1 and 5 may be managed, in part, by individual users. The rest require intervention on a larger level, mainly from governing bodies. With larger sums of money at their disposal, governments might have greater ability in applying these mitigating strategies across large regions.
While all of the items in the list above will promote sustainability, it is worth noting which features a sustainable transportation system might include. For example, high quality and highly accessible public transport services that can respond flexibly to changes in transport needs should be involved.
As shown before, road building seldom keeps pace with growth in travel demand, and it should not be a sole solution to congestion problems for urban areas. The majority of major transportation infrastructure construction takes 10 to 15 years from start to finish; over this time span, congestion trends can shift dramatically (Sarzynski, 2006). In the United States, land use decisions for public infrastructure are normally made by local governmental review boards and elected officials. State Departments of Transportation typically defer to local governments on any land use issues. Transportation’s most significant impact to land development occurs when open access to land is provided; increased access to land raises any development potential and more development generates additional travel and emissions (Beimborn et al., 1999). Once access is provided, land patterns and the environment will change, and the results of these changes are customarily irreversible (Beimborn et al., 1999).
For these reasons and more, changes in land use may be another tool available to regions interested in implementing sustainable solutions. When laying out highway transportation networks, designers can allot a tract of land adjacent to or between lanes of a roadway to accommodate potential public transportation infrastructure (i.e., bus lanes, rail lines) at a later date. If the public transportation plans are never implemented at the site, then land is preserved, at the absolute least. While this may be a simple solution, this could help abate the aforementioned problem of deteriorated urban water quality from pavement runoff (American Rivers, 2002).
Another related issue many cities in the United States are struggling with is how to reinvigorate downtown centers with new shopping options in order to keep people within the city limits. The cost of office and retail space in most downtowns is prohibitive. Right now, across many metropolitan areas, developers are able to offer less expensive retail and office space in the suburbs. This increases movement towards new, undeveloped land at the expense of quality of life in the city’s downtown. One solution to this quandary would be for governing agencies to include incentives as a tool in sustainable transportation frameworks. These tax incentives would encourage developers to create new office and retail space downtown, as well as to develop a variety of concentrated housing options. Pricing that shows the true cost of resources is demonstrated in Europe, for example, by situating office spaces close to residences (Cervero, 2000).
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