What Works?

A good transportation policy must provide an effective way of moving people and goods around. But, given the potentially crushing impacts of poorly designed transportation systems on our land, our air, and on the lives of the people who live in the region, there are a variety of other objectives that must guide the decisions we make. In the Sacramento area, one of the key objectives is that our transportation plan must contribute to an improvement in air quality. It must also support the conservative land use policies like those adopted in SACOG's Blueprint. And, to further complicate the situation, the transportation policy choices we make will affect area residents differently, depending on their income level.

Carolyn Rodier published a paper comparing the effectiveness of a variety of transportation strategies towards meeting these goals. (It’s available thanks to the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC-Davis). Although part of the purpose of her paper is to compare the output of different models that project the effects of transportation policy decisions, she also makes some interesting observations concerning the policies that are most likely to help us meet our objectives. Most interesting to me is the information summarized in Table 2 of her paper and explained on pages 6-8. It appears that the most effective policy across the board is one that combines increased gas taxes, investment in “advanced” light rail (better transit information systems and/or local paratransit service), and a solid urban growth boundary (UGB) to centralize future land use and development. Enforceable land use controls, investment in transit, and disincentives for fuel consumption would seem to be the winning combination for addressing congestion, air quality, and land conservation.

Rodier also notes that, without aggressive investment in transit, the costs of strategies like gas taxes and urban growth boundaries tend to fall on the poorest in the community. Transit is the great equalizer in spreading the hidden costs of transportation policy equitably across the entire community.

SACOG recognizes the importance of land use policy to meeting transportation goals. The Blueprint process, whereby the agency facilitated a regional consensus among the community and local jurisdictions on future land use, was a real breakthrough in transportation policy. Nevertheless, the fact that Blueprint land use scenario is voluntary (read: unenforceable against any municipality that makes land use decisions) is a significant source of concern.

As SACOG rolls out its long-term Metropolitan Transportation Plan, we have other reasons to be concerned. Too often in the past, the mix of projects included in the MTP were heavily weighted towards road projects that encourage rather than discourage automobile traffic. Transit has traditionally been the stepchild of Sacramento transportation planning. Rodier’s paper is a great reminder that policies that encourage people switch from low-density automobiles to transit, and discourage them from continuing to commute in low-density vehicles, ultimately provide the greatest benefit to everyone in the community.