Back to Basics in Transportation Planning: Rediscovering our roots can solve 21st Century traffic woes

While checking my email (at the office,) I came across a link to an article called Back to Basics in Transportation Planning: Rediscovering our roots can solve 21st Century traffic woes. The article is written by Gary Toth, a 34-year veteran with the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Gary started working in a department of the DOT “that had been created to meet with communities, business owners, public agencies and other community stakeholders to seek their support for various road projects. We were supposed to reduce community resistance, which was beginning to delay and even cancel projects. But as time went on, it became clear to [him] that the real point of transportation projects should be building successful communities and fostering economic prosperity.”

The article explains how we ended up with a transportation system that is entirely focused on cars, and how the system is in need of major change. He makes a few recommendations on how we can get out of the mess we are in today. First, he says that transportation project must go hand-in-hand with land use planning. (This is something that the provincial government is ignoring at this moment.) Secondly, we need to be building complete communities like downtown Langley or Fort Langley. Places where people can get around by driving, transiting, walking, or biking. Thirdly, we need to have connected streets on a grid. Think downtown Vancouver. You are starting to see this kind of street again in new communities like Clayton Heights in Surrey. Finally, he says that we need to start viewing our streets a public places, and not just asphalt.

It’s high time that all the communities in our side of the river get a complex transportation system that integrates with communities. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing that in any current transportation projects.