"Properly integrating land use and transportation requires a clear vision and policy framework developed through active citizen participation. Communities must more broadly define the objectives of the transportation system and how its performance is measured."
-- Whit Blanton, "Integrating Land Use and Transportation" (in Planning Commissioners Journal #40)
note: this article is also available as part of a collection of articles in Transportation: Getting Started.
Belisha beacon is a flashing orange globe atop a tall black and white pole. They appear on either side of the road at zebra crossings in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in the former British crown colonies of Singapore and Hong Kong. They are named after Leslie Hore-Belisha (1895-1957), the Minister of Transport who introduced them in 1934. Their function is to provide additional visibility to zebra crossings for motorists. From Wikipedia.
Note: for more on belisha beacons, see Is there a Belisha Beacon in Your Neighborhood? on our PlannersWeb blog.
"I'm not against cars. But your city doesn't have to be oriented toward them. A car is like your mother-in-law. You want to have a good relationship with her, but you can't let her conduct your life. When a city has good public transportation, it becomes for people and for cars. Imagine a city with 30 percent fewer cars on the streets."
-- Jaime Lerner, former Mayor of Curitaba, Brazil (pop. 1.7 million); Lerner was instrumental in Curitaba making a major investment in "bus rapid transit" systems. From "Imagine a City With 30 Percent Fewer Cars" (interview in Sierra Magazine, Jan/Feb. 2006).
"Mae Smith, the 64-year-old mayor of the teeny Central Texas town of Holland, seized the civic center lectern like a dragon-slayer ascending the throne. In a fiery red pantsuit and a voice that echoed without the help of a malfunctioning microphone, she and her cohorts revealed to a crowd of about 50 souls clad in denim and plaid a little-known weapon against the foe of all in the room: Gov. Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor.
The weapon, Smith said, doesn't involve marching on the Texas Capitol, like more than 1,000 did last year, some on tractors and horses. It doesn't involve clever Web sites that have been launched with cartoon characters and screaming rainbow text. And it doesn't involve confronting TxDOT big shots at public hearings across the state, like thousands did last year.
No, the mighty sword revealed by Smith is something called the Eastern Central Sub-Regional Planning Commission. 'It's a mouthful,' Smith acknowledged quickly of the bureaucratically nebulous name. 'You ought to try saying it with a lisp.' "
From, "Putting up a roadblock of questions," by Lisa Falkenberg in the Houston Chronicle (March 19, 2008), posted on the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog.
Note: According to Falkenberg's commentary, Texas law requires state agencies, "to the greatest extent feasible," to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." As Falkenberg explains, "the law may require TxDOT officials to sit in a room for hours, months, years, maybe even decades, as members of the Eastern Central Sub-Regional Planning Commission dwell on how the corridor might affect their water lines, EMS response times and any unforeseeable impact on their rural way of life. ... ECSRPC commissioners plan to prolong the 'coordination' process until, as Smith puts it, 'they do it right or change their mind. I have no time limit, honey.' "
For more on the massive proposed Trans-Texas Corridor highway/rail project, see: the Texas Dept. of Transportation's Trans-Texas Corridor web site, and -- for opposing viewpoints -- the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog.
"As you know, we have massive transportation demands, but no money after 2011 to meet them. ... In the next 10 years, we have over 10,000 miles of highways that need to be resurfaced ... We have 700 bridges, deficient bridges that need repairs and we shouldn't wait for a tragedy to motivate us to fix them. We need to expand mass transit so as to get cars off the roads and carbon out of the air ...
All in all, we need close to $40 billion over the next 10 years to ... The truth is, we have few practical ideas of where the money will be found. As a thirty year veteran of financial markets, I know there is no magic to finance. No plan, no investment comes without cash.
I want to be clear and honest upfront -- my plan involves significant toll hikes. ... The first increase will come in 2010 and will be 50%. Three other increases of up to 50% will come in successive four-year intervals ending in 2022. ... Before critics rush to judgment, this toll schedule needs to be contrasted with equally robust alternatives of tax increases or budget cuts that would produce the same results.
Let’s not insult each other or the public with empty rhetoric about that we can pay down the debt and fund transportation improvements if we 'just cut more spending and get rid of all waste, fraud and abuse.' We will cut spending. We will direct trust fund monies to their proper place ... We will challenge fraud and raise accountability standards ... and we will end spending gimmicks ...
But pigs will fly over the Statehouse before there’s a realistic level of new taxes or spending cuts that can fix this mess."
-- from New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine's State of the State Address (Jan. 8, 2008) which unveiled a controversial proposal for steep toll increases on the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and Atlantic City Expressway. Note: for a recent update, see "Tide turning against toll hike plan," in the New Jersey Star-Ledger (Feb. 8, 2008)
"During the last three years there have been 17 accidents between the Wigan North Western bridge and Library Street – three quarters of them involving pedestrians. The Metro's controversial solution involves banning cars between King Street and King Street West although buses and taxis will still be allowed. ... But some angry traders claim the move will drive them out of business. ... 'We firmly believe that they can do something about it without closing the road off. We want them to take a new look at things like the introduction of a 20mph area or introducing sleeping policeman.' "
-- from "Firms hit out in road war," on Wigan.net web site (Nov. 21, 2007)
Note: For origins of the phrase "sleeping policeman," see Language Log: Beware of Sleeping Idioms (on how the phrase came to describe speed humps or bumps). While the phrase is more often used in Great Britain, it is also sometimes used in the U.S. Of course, it can also be used in its more literal sense! For example, see this posting on Mayor Sam's blog: "But in Compton, sleeping policemen are not speed bumps. They are school district policemen, asleep, on the job, even at the wheel."
"'I couldn't sleep one night," said Mr. Swearer, who was dean of the [Parsons New School for Design] until 2004, "and once the dawn broke, I just thought 'I've got to get out of this apartment.' So I walked to work, and I saw all of this amazing stuff: delivery trucks unloading weird junk, phenomenal light plays on the buildings, fabulous wall postings and graffiti, wonderfully eccentric people ... It was like going to the theater. So I started walking to work, and after a few months liked it so much that I walked home too, about eight miles total."
-- from "The Extreme Boulevardier," by Alex Marshall in The New York Times (Aug. 17, 2007)
"Climate change is real ... we need to be part of the solution ... that's a significant shift for us."
-- Nancy Gioia, Director of Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Program at Ford Motor Company (on Ford's attitude towards climate change; part of remarks Gioia made at a Conference on plug-in electric hybrid vehicles at the University of Vermont, Dec. 10, 2007).
Note: See the related post on our PlannersWeb blog today, Plug In Your Car & Save Dollars (and the Environment).
"Well-designed transit is a catalyst for economic development. According to Federal Transit Administration research, every $10 million invested in transit capital projects yields an estimated $30 million in business sales."
-- Federal Transit Administrator James Simpson (in interview published in Community Transportation Magazine, Fall 2006)
"Q: Does talking on a cellphone automatically qualify a driver to use car-pool lanes? That’s what Burien resident Patricia Garner has been wondering.
'I occasionally get onto Interstate 5 at the South Michigan Street onramp,' said Garner, who does volunteer work in Seattle’s Rainier Valley. 'That’s where I see them most often. Many of the drivers seem to feel that talking on a cellphone while driving qualifies them to use the HOV lane. How does that work?'
A: According to state code, car-pool lanes are for the exclusive use of public-transportation vehicles or private vehicles with the number of occupants specified on signs. That means if a driver is alone, the car-pool lane is off-limits. Having someone on the other end of a cellphone conversation doesn’t change that. ... Perhaps, though, drivers on their cellphones could be veering into the car-pool lanes there simply because they’re preoccupied and not paying attention to where they’re going."
-- From Iaq Pubs blog post, Car-pool partner must be in the car (Nov. 26, 2007)
"The idea is that these little mini roundabouts will slow down speeders in residential neighborhoods ... All I can think of is, what happens with the first good snow cover, when drivers can't see them? I see a lot of broken axles in the future of Edgewood Avenue."
-- from the Letter from Here blog, about Madison, Wisconsin (Nov. 18, 2007)
"One of the most interesting aspects of intelligent community design is the fact that the width and surroundings of a street can do infinitely more to determine traffic speeds and behavior than a feeble speed limit sign could ever hope to. ... This is a fact: When even the most conscientious person gets behind the wheel of a vehicle, that person changes and becomes markedly more aggressive and seeks to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible. (Road rage incidents, for instance, are very often perpetrated by people who are non-confrontational outside of their car.) The street conditions communicate with the vehicle and determine what speed is desirable - - a vehicle-driver "collective brain" is created."
-- from post Roads As Sewers on the Sprawled Out blog
"We literally have more federal transit dollars [in Mississippi] than we can spend because we can't match it with local funds ... we have 27 operating casinos in the state, but not one penny goes to transit."
-- Charles Carr, Director of the Public Transit Division in the Mississippi Dept. of Transportation (speaking at a panel discussion of the Community Transportation Association at the University of Vermont, Sept. 21, 2007). For more on this discussion, see our blog post Getting fannies on the bus.
"Your e-mail discussed comments I made during a recent interview regarding the importance of effectively prioritizing major transportation spending decisions. These comments were in no way intended as an indictment of bicycle and pedestrian investments broadly. ... bicyclists and pedestrians are legitimate and welcome users of our Nation's transportation system. They are a healthy part of the solution to congestion in our urban areas." -- U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters -- October 4, 2007 in response to emails reacting to her comment on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer that trails and bike paths are not “transportation-related” (from information provided by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy).
Yes, it's baseball playoff season. So it's only natural to think about which players are really slugging. But how about also applauding those Washington, D.C. area commuters who slug their way to work every day. Don't have a clue what I'm talking about, take a look at today's quote from the About Slugging web page:
"The system of slugging is quite simple. A car needing additional passengers to meet the required 3- person high occupancy vehicle (HOV) minimum pulls up to one of the known slug lines. The driver usually positions the car so that the slugs are on the passenger side. The driver either displays a sign with the destination or simply lowers the passenger window, to call out the destination, such as "Pentagon," "L’Enfant Plaza," or "14th & New York." ...
No money is exchanged because of the mutual benefit: the car driver needs riders just as much as the slugs need a ride. Each party needs the other in order to survive. Normally, there is no conversation unless initiated by the driver; usually the only words exchanged are "Thank you" as the driver drops off the slugs at the destination."
Note: if you go to About Slugging you'll also read about the interesting origins of the term "slug." And then browse around the rest of the Slug-Lines.com web site.
"We are now living in a time when challenges of global warming, an aging society, and energy security ... will lead to a dramatic increase in demand for public transit."
-- Dale Marsico, Director of the Community Transportation Association of America (speaking during a panel discussion at the University of Vermont, Sept. 21, 2007).
Editor's Note: see our Getting fannies on the bus blog posting for more on this panel discussion of rural/suburban public transit.
"With so many railroad crossings, there's a lot of opportunity for misadventure."
-- Vincennes (Indiana) Mayor Terry Mooney (in discussing with PCJ Editor Wayne Senville some of the problems with having 84 railroad crossings in his small city; see related blog post)
