Article on transportation and the economy for NJ Biz: "Congestion gets us nowhere"
By Dianne Brake
President, The Regional Planning Partnership
12/18/02
Last week a real estate consultant called me to ask about plans for highway improvements in central New Jersey. She represented a major pharmaceutical firm that was considering sites here because of access to a large pool of skilled workers and being within a day's truck drive to almost 70% of the continental market. But, she continued, the company was hesitant to commit to New Jersey because of its notorious traffic congestion.
The consultant was aware of a recent traffic study that predicted drivers
in central New Jersey - now spending about 13% of their driving time in
congestion - could be spending as much as 51% of their time in congestion
by 2020. The report also showed that planned highway improvements, such
as Route 92, would reduce congestion. When, she asked, could these highway
improvements be expected?
I told her that if she were looking for highway improvements to reduce
traffic congestion substantially, she would be disappointed. The few improvements
in the pipeline are all being held up in local controversy - both rail
and highway projects. There is still a considerable amount of commercial
development expected in central New Jersey, and all of it zoned for low
density, single uses that will be almost entirely auto-dependent. When
the Elizabeth port is dredged, allowing even bigger tankers to dock, a
minimum of 75% of the trillions of containers that will be unloaded there
are going to make the rest of their trip by truck. The fact that there
are no real plans to handle the increase in truck or rail freight could
turn this economic boon into the bane of our lives. Further, given current
tax policies, even if we had plans to expand the system, there is a shrinking
amount of state and federal money available for maintenance, let alone
new capacity.
As Winston Churchill once said to Parliament during the darkest period of World War II, "We are out of money, therefore we will have to think." The challenges of gaining local approval for new projects and the lack of money to build them, will force us to look for radical, and in the long run, more acceptable solutions.
Part of the problem has been that transportation planners have seen their job almost entirely as "solving" traffic congestion. Even issues of safety are addressed by planning for increased traffic flow. Computer models are designed to look for congestion and generate proposals for new lanes, overpasses and bypasses to "solve" the problem.
Transportation planners look to local government to identify where growth will be, and see their own job as building a transportation system to serve it appropriately. Separating land use from transportation decisions in this way, however, results in a spiraling problem of sprawl and congestion.
Under the current system, new capacity attracts new growth - usually in low-density, single use developments. As congestion builds, people decide to move away, pushing growth onto open land, forcing the construction of new roads, which in turn attracts new development, adds new traffic, and so on. This is the viscous sprawl cycle.
We cannot use highway construction to build our way out of congestion: it is both environmentally and functionally wrong, and financially and politically unobtainable. On the other hand, we cannot stop development. Growth pressure is caused by trends in reproduction, immigration and mobility that are outside New Jersey's control.
Smart Growth provides the only way out of the congestion dilemma. Smart Growth accommodates growth while reducing land consumption, reducing auto-dependence, protecting the environment and equitably distributing the costs and benefits of new development.
In order to fulfill its promise, Smart Growth requires integrating land use and transportation planning, and encouraging growth in compact, mixed-use growth centers selected for their transit-potential. It requires an understanding of the capacity of both gray and green infrastructure so that planners can choose between locations appropriate for growth and those appropriate for preservation. Smart Growth also requires us to examine the cost and availability of housing, ensuring there is plenty of opportunity to live near work. And it requires us to select transit corridors and make plans to provide more transportation choices over the long term.
While this approach does not ignore congestion, it shifts the emphasis to access and density. Thinking about access helps us choose the "smart" amount, type and location of growth. Density helps us reduce land and resource consumption and more easily mitigate the impact of growth on the environment. Planning for access and density gives us a transit- and pedestrian-friendly environment, and provides opportunities for social interaction, commerce, affordable housing, and public amenities.
The Regional Planning Partnership (RPP) is a non-profit promoting sound land use decisions and regional cooperation. It has developed new planning tools like GOZ® (a zoning build-out model) and Plan Mapping© (a matrix for integrating plans). RPP also has a concept plan for central New Jersey, called Vision 2050, that demonstrates how Smart Growth principles can and should be applied.
Vision 2050 was developed through a three-step approach to planning - understanding the capacity of both gray and green infrastructure, selecting transit corridors, and setting growth targets in appropriate locations. If the State were to adopt this approach statewide, it would demonstrate to those who are considering a move here - like the pharmaceutical company we began with - that there is indeed a comprehensive strategy to address access and mobility, build a sustainable economy, protect environmental resources, and promote social equity and a strong labor force.
The McGreevey Administration has embraced Smart Growth principles, but it is still not clear how they plan to apply them. Smart Growth shows us the way forward, but it is in complete opposition to the current system of planning practices, state and local regulations, and infrastructure decision-making. Turning this system around, is not just turning around the proverbial ocean liner, it means turning around a fleet of ocean liners. It is an enormous, multi-faceted challenge. It is, however, the only way out of our lose/lose debate over congestion.