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.
What’s the difference between a street and a road? Focusing on the different primary purposes of each could help bring clarity to the discussion over how to address the traffic congestion on major arteries like Route 1 in Mercer County, and how best to implement a bus rapid transit system there.
Complete streets, safe routes to school and joint-use policies can help change the built environment and increase access to existing facilities, thereby offering multiple additional opportunities for physical activity.
Sen. Menendez introduces an updated Livable Communities Act, including funding to spark private investment in transit-oriented development.
The city of Summit’s planning board voted unanimously in favor of seeking Transit Village status with the NJ Department of Transportation, but the initiative could fall short should the DOT fail to commit to the Transit Village program this year.
Two of New Jersey’s top transportation officials stress the importance of transit-oriented development and the state’s Transit Villages program.
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.
How New Jersey’s employment patterns have dispersed away from urban centers in the last 25 years, and why it’s important to the future of the state to bring jobs back to transit-accessible areas. November 2008.
Residential growth is happening further and further away from Route 1′s employment centers, making it harder for employers to recruit talent and leading them to contemplate locating elsewhere. Interviews with local, regional and county officials from the jurisdictions along Route 1 identified barriers to center-based growth and steps that can be taken to encourage it. July 2007.
April 25, 2011 — The state should establish a hierarchy of business location incentives based on conformance with its smart-growth goals.
