HighLight Heading
July 2009
Leaders discuss applications of Access to Destinations study findings
Curt Johnson
Tim Henkel
Mariia Zimmerman
“Following the presentations by David Levinson and Kevin Krizek (see Access to Destinations article), a panel of transportation leaders discussed the implications of the Access to Destinations study and how its findings can be used in understanding and planning transportation and land use systems.
Tim Henkel, division director of modal planning and program management at Mn/DOT, placed the study in the context of state planning. During the development of its 2009–2028 strategic plan, Mn/DOT learned that the public strongly supports performance-based management. But it also discovered that performance-based needs for Twin Cities mobility are difficult to define with the limited set of performance measures available today, and that regional and community improvement priorities, such as economic development and quality of life issues, are extremely difficult to quantify. “Highway delay is not the only measure of mobility,” Henkel said. “Transportation systems are too complex to use one measure to evaluate success.”
The Access study will help Mn/DOT address these needs, he said. First, the results provide clear understanding of the connection between land use and transportation, which aids in the discussion and development of policies and strategies. Second, “this work is truly a valuable tool to analyze the historical changes in land use and transportation,” he said. Third, the study’s potential ability to look at “what if?” scenarios will make it “extremely useful” to identify mid-range and longrange investments, he predicted. Finally, the work led to new data collection methodologies for the various modes, which will allow the department to look across all modes to make investment decisions.
As the study progresses toward application development, Henkel said, Mn/DOT is looking for answers to other questions. For example: How does accessibility relate to other performance measures, such as duration and extent of congestion? How would accessibility be used as a mobility measure for short trips, non-commuter trips, and non-motorized trips? And how would access be used as a mobility measure on a regional level, for regional and community improvement priorities and quality of life issues? By incorporating findings from the Access study in policy discussions, Henkel concluded, “we can inform policy debate … and make the department a stronger policy body as well as investment decision-making body.”
Curt Johnson, president of Citistates Group, said the Access study represents “a major potential reversal of a longstanding American habit of asking the wrong question.” In their presentation, he said, Levinson and Krizek noted our “fixation on congestion as the problem” and our focus on mobility, throughput, and velocity as an answer. “Mobility matters, of course,” he said. “But what [the study] is showing us is it is access that is critical. And our mistake of asking the wrong question is compounded by a persistently false diagnosis.”
Congestion isn’t a performance problem, Johnson asserted—it’s a design problem. A sellout concert is hailed as a success, while traffic congestion is called a crisis. “But we don’t admit that we designed it this way,” he said. “We replaced the [grid street network] with long canyons of concrete…funneling traffic in a pattern absolutely guaranteed to create congestion in any area successful enough to have a lot of people with reasons to go places.”
As a result of that design, Johnson said, “we hand off to the next generation a system not only worn out, but designed for the historical aberration that was the last half of the 20th century.”
What should we do about it? First, he advised, “recognize that most of the problem and answer lies in real estate, not roads. Land uses that improve access, and transportation strategies that are consistent with those land uses, are the way to make a difference.” Next, determine what conditions make it possible for people to reach many places using many modes. Then, ask if those conditions are present today or if zoning codes render them illegal. And then, ask how those policies might be changed to allow access.
“We cannot do access,” Johnson concluded. “We get access if we get certain fundamentals right.” Mariia Zimmerman, vice president for policy with Reconnecting America, said the Access study “has done a good job probing us to ask the fundamental questions” in anticipation of the federal surface transportation authorization bill. (U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar released the House draft of the bill June 18.)
Zimmerman recounted her work in recent months with Transportation for America, a broad coalition of 300 organizations from around the country that looked at how the next federal bill can be “fundamentally different,” she said. In May it issued its “route to reform,” a report defining a national transportation vision. The report proposes that “we look at transportation not as an end,” she said, “but at its role in preserving and better connecting transportation systems with issues of energy, security, and climate change, public health and safety, environmental protection, and more equitable and fair access.”
The report calls for national performance targets, objectives, and goals. The transportation industry would then be asked to come up with different solutions based on different state and local needs, structures, and institutions, she said.
The group also used the concept of access in recommending a new multimodal program directed at large metropolitan areas. It calls for such areas to create a blueprint for a set of transportation investments, management strategies (potentially including pricing), and land use strategies to meet a set of national targets over the next 20 years. A companion program would address issues that states are best equipped to handle. “We did indeed take the notions of access and think how we could create a program,” she said.
CTS director and moderator Robert Johns, noting Transportation for America’s proposed “Metropolitan Access Program,” said he had “never seen a research program have so much potential influence over a federal policy before the research results are even done.”