Michael A. Replogle

By and large people drive because they feel it is more convenient, faster and sometimes even more affordable than other ways of travel. Public policy can help “nudge” people to choose more sustainable forms of transportation and reduce driving. We have seen this work in many places. A forthcoming report, due out later this month, based on research conducted by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy’s Europe office, documents how eight new developments in Europe have used a combination of public policy and urban design to dramatically reduce both car ownership and vehicle miles driven.
The eight developments include Greenwich Millenium Village in London, which has a driving mode share of just 18% compared to the neighboring Greenwich District which has a driving mode share of 44%; and Västra Hammen in Malmö, Sweden which as a driving mode share of 23%, compared to the citywide average of 41%.
How do these developments do it? They ensure their residents have access to high quality transit, they have mixed use zoning and smal

It’s time to re-imagine our cities with less traffic, fewer high-speed roads, and more of our streets reserved for walking, cycling, public transport, and room for the unfolding of “life between buildings” in well designed public space. For decades, cars have been squeezing out pedestrians and cyclists, as transport planners and engineers argued that the solution to congestion and urban efficiency was to build more and wider highways. As traffic grew, it seemed logical that giving more space to cars would improve traffic flow. But the reality has been that adding more high-speed motorways and parking spaces has fueled traffic growth and harmed urban livability, spurred sprawl and drastically boosted CO2 emissions and dependence on fossil fuel.

Global research reveals a counter-intuitive truth, recently described as the “fundamental law of road congestion: adding road capacity will not alleviate congestion on any sort of major urban road or rural highway within metropolitan bound

The gas-tax-funded Highway Trust Fund is broke, with the Transit Trust Fund not far behind. Only with large infusions of funds from general revenues is the existing formula-based federal transportation funding framework able to continue at essentially flat levels. It’s time to tie new funding to performance. Are the proposed spending plans likely to achieve improved access to jobs and housing with less pollution and dependence on oil in both the short and long run? Is there a sustainable revenue stream from user fees, taxes, and real-estate value capture sufficient to pay back the needed up front investment? If so, then by all means let’s put the full faith and credit of the federal government behind making these investments happen.

Both the past and current Administrations have wisely sought to focus their modest discretionary transportation spending authority on competitive programs. The Bush Administration’s Urban Partnerships Agreements and Congestion Reduction Pilots conditioned federal funds on increased local efforts to spur innovative finance thro