Land-Use Solutions
Because transportation and land use are so intertwined, often the best and least expensive solution to a transportation problem is a solution that incorporates broader land-use issues.
Rather than continually widening roads, employing land-use strategies can reduce the need to drive. These strategies include zoning that allows destinations to be closer together, building “Complete Streets” that accommodate other modes of transportation and providing linkages between properties and neighborhoods so that local traffic isn’t forced onto the “main” road for every trip.
Simply adding capacity to roads to address congestion creates a vicious cycle that ultimately leads to more congestion. While capacity expansion is necessary and useful in certain instances to relieve bottlenecks and improve safety, transportation planners should look first to the larger land-use issues surrounding the given problem and incorporate these issues into the solution.
The Central Jersey Housing Resource Center honored New Jersey Future with its Outstanding Achievement in Affordable Housing Award.
The differing needs that ports have from their host municipalities leads to an ongoing balancing act across multiple jurisdictions.
An effort to incorporate public health impacts into all policies can result in smarter transportation and local land-use planning.
An interactive planning workshop at the Redevelopment Forum took a look at New Brunswick’s efforts to improve the pedestrian-friendliness of its streets.
Once a town passes a Complete Streets resolution, the important work of getting it implemented begins. Here are some best practices.
New Jersey has 243 transit facilities, ranging from small single-track stations to major multi-line hubs. The unique characteristics of each station, of its immediate neighborhood, and of its surrounding municipality mean that a wide variety of development strategies should be brought to bear in order to maximize each location’s potential. This report shows how data assembled by New Jersey Future can be used to make decisions on how to target various kinds of transit-oriented development efforts. September 2012.
Sept. 24, 2012: New Jersey Future announced it has assembled a comprehensive database of development-related statistics for the state’s 243 transit stations and their surrounding neighborhoods.
A comprehensive policy, along with a strong outreach effort, is helping the State of New Jersey and its municipalities re-envision streets in order to consider the needs of all users.
To the NJ Department of Transportation and Commissioner Jack Lettiere for a significant shift in transportation decision-making toward the use of modern, community-friendly and environmentally friendly solutions to New Jersey’s transportation problems.
Oct. 11, 2011 — A new statewide poll commissioned in part by New Jersey Future shows that New Jersey residents think the way the state has developed over the last 20 years has made it less affordable and more difficult to travel. They support more compact communities with greater transportation choices, protection of critical resources like drinking water, and regional coordination of land-use planning efforts.
Reports, Presentations and Testimony
- Getting to Work 11-08
- 04-03-2009 Letter to DEP re Global Warming Solutions Fund Rules
- ShapingNJ Community Pilot Meeting Overview 06-09-11
- Route 1 Planning Through Partnerships
- Executive Order-78
- Land Use Trends NJPHA 2011
- 04/02/2012: NJFuture Comments to State Planning Commission on Draft State Strategic Plan
- 05-2009 Smart Housing Incentives Act - Summary
- Targeting Transit -- New Jersey Future
