TRANSPORTATION

CORE PRINCIPLES: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

Transportation planning once focused solely on providing more capacity. That is changing as we realize that the more roads there are, the more people drive: the more sprawl there is the more land we use up, and the more people have no choice but to drive. Now planners aim for accessibility, a more holistic way of thinking about how people use transportation to support the life they want.

The shift implicit in this is that land use and transportation are conceived and planned together. Gone are the days where highway departments built their infrastructure and left cities to figure out how to deal with the negative impacts, the leftover spaces, and the growth patterns the road set in motion. The results of this more progressive approach are denser, more walkable neighborhoods; more transportation choices; and transit so reliable that is becomes more attractive than the hassles and costs of driving.

The No-Highway solution applies this progressive, low-tech transportation planning to Seattle's larger system. It is based on the following principles:

1. Identify transportation market segments, and match solutions to the needs of each segment individually. Long-haul freight, commuters, shoppers, the elderly, commercial deliveries, and parents with kids have different patterns and can take advantage of different options. A single facility does not present the best answer to everyone's needs. A combination of options gives us the best overall solution.
2. Take advantage of unused capacity on the roads that already exist. There are several nearly empty arterials in our city, and plenty of existing road space. Typically, making existing transportation resources function more efficiently is more cost-effective than building new facilities.
3. There is no money for megaprojects in the new millennium. The federal government isn't investing in infrastructure like they used to, and billions of unfunded transportation projects in our own state are competing for very limited dollars. Leaders across the country are facing reality: they have to find solutions they can afford to pay for with mostly local resources.
4. Provide multiple transportation choices, and the larger system will balance itself. In urban situations a grid works better than a single-channel, high-speed facility, for two basic reasons:
   • Because the high-speed facility always meets the street grid eventually, where it's impossible to prevent bottlenecks;
   • Because with access to information and multiple choices, travelers can take advantage of a different route or mode if their habitual one isn't working.
5. Transportation is a means to quality of life, not an end unto itself. Transportation should be designed to support a holistic long-term vision, not planned in a vacuum to maximize its own efficiency. Transportation serves communities, not the other way around.
6. Capital costs are only one component of the cost picture. When comparing solutions, measure the total costs -- including the cost of lost opportunities, costs of long-term maintenance, costs to the environment, and costs to quality of life -- and seek the lowest "real" cost solution.