Engineers to U.S. DOT: Transportation Is About More Than Moving Cars...I hope Nashville is listening, too!

Nashville's Public Works has carried the job of moving cars as fast as possible from point A to B.  But, Nashville is changing fast and with this change comes a desire to have top-notch walking infrastructure which is currently sorely missing.  Now, Nashvillians are asking for well designed tree-lined sidewalks to be a major focus.  

Hillsboro Pike

'The nation's biggest and most respected transportation engineering group is saying federal officials are too focused on cars and not enough on people', according to Street Blog USA.    

American policy makers are being asked to shift focus from car only to multi-modal transportation.  This focus on car-only transportation is very evident in Nashville where are major corridors and pikes do not allow for safe walking.  

Nashvillians, now is the time to talk with your councilperson.
---Find your council member here:  http://www.nashville.gov/Metro-Council/Metro-Council-Members.aspx 

We want high quality, uniform, well designed sidewalks that link our neighborhoods with business districts, school, libraries and parks.  No more low quality sidewalks without green buffers.  No more sidewalks directly next to fast-paced roads that feel unsafe.  No more mailboxes or telephone poles in the middle of the sidewalk making them essentially unusable.   If they can't be built properly, I would say that we would rather wait and have none until we can find the money to do it right.  

Friday, August 26, 2016

Engineers to U.S. DOT: Transportation Is About More Than Moving Cars

by Angie Schmitt

A trade group representing the transportation engineering profession thinks it’s high time for American policy makers to stop focusing so much on moving single-occupancy vehicles.

Should roads like this be considered a success? ITE doesn’t think so. Photo: Smart Growth America

U.S. DOT is currently deciding how it will assess the performance of state DOTs. Will it continue business as usual and equate success with moving huge numbers of cars? That’s what state transportation officials want, but just about everyone else disagrees — including professional transportation engineers.

In its comments to the Federal Highway Administration about how to measure performance, the Institute of Transportation Engineers — a trade group representing 13,000 professionals — said that, in short, the system should not focus so heavily on cars [PDF].

Here’s a key excerpt:

Throughout the current proposed rulemaking on NHS performance, traffic congestion, freight mobility, and air quality, an underlying theme is apparent: these measures speak largely to the experience of those in single occupancy vehicles (SOVs). While such a focus is understandable in the short-term, owing largely to the current availability of data from the NPMRDS and other national sources, ITE and its membership feel that FHWA should move quickly within the framework of the existing performance management legislation to begin developing performance measures that cater to multimodal transportation systems.

The first step in this process is instituting a program to develop standards and procedures for data collection within this alternative modes of travel, an effort which ITE feels should be undertaken by FHWA and its USDOT partner agencies concurrent to the final performance management rulemaking under consideration. Once this multimodal framework is established, FHWA can work to develop a more comprehensive and holistic set of performance measures that accommodate multiple modes of transportation, while achieving secondary effects of improved public health, community livability, and economic development.

While ITE is supportive in moving forward with the majority of the proposed measures as the first step in this evolutionary process, we do believe FHWA should postpone the adoption of an urban congestion measure until such time as this measure can represent all users of the system. The singular focus of the current proposed measure on vehicle-based travel may have the unintended consequences of focusing investment on the movement of SOVs at a time when the transportation industry has begun to aggressively support shared services and transportation choices. Rather than expending limited FHWA, State and local resources on implementing a measure of questionable value, we respectfully request that FHWA direct those resources toward the collection of multi-modal data and the establishment of multi-modal and person-based measures.

This is very much in line with what advocates for reform like Transportation for America have been saying.

The way FHWA’s draft rule is currently written emphasizes vehicle delay. In other words, it prioritizes the movement of cars over broader social, environmental, and public health concerns — exactly the kind of old-fashioned thinking that has led states on an endless cycle of expensive highway widenings and continued gridlock. State officials may not have figured out that something needs to change, but it looks like the engineering profession has.