Highway Blues: Nothing a Little Accessibility can't Cure in the Policy | TTP 220, Study notes of Public Policy

Download Highway Blues: Nothing a Little Accessibility can't Cure in the Policy | TTP 220 and more Study notes Public Policy in PDF only on Docsity! High way Blues: Nothing a Little Accessibility Can't Cure BY SUSAN HANDY L recently moved from Berkeley to Austin, the “Berkeley of Texas.” Although there are similarities, and Austin is certainly as close to Berkeley as Texas gets, there are plenty of things I miss about Berkeley, I miss the hills and the bay. T miss good Chinese food and Thai food, Super Burritos, and cheap, expertly made caffe lattes. Most of all, I miss having my favorite restaurants, a copy shop, a bike shop, a pet store, a bookstore, anda super- market, all within a short and pleasant walk from home. But I like Austin. “It’s easy,” I tell my friends, “it’s easy to get around.” Unlike Berkeley, Austin is built for cars. Arterials are wide with many lanes. Major arterials are being upgraded to freeways at an impressive rate, complete with three-lane frontage roads on each side. Of course, litte room is loft for bikes, let alone dedicated bike lanes, and little thought is given to the pedestrian in either residential or commercial areas. But as long as I'm in my car, getting around couldn 't be easier. > Susan Handy is assistant profe Austin, TX 78712-1160. This 8 eae NUMBER 5S, FALL 1994  The difference between Berkeley and Austin, as I see it, is the difference between accessibility and mobility. In Berkeley, getting around by car is a pain, but I can get to the kinds of places I like. In Austin, I drive around easily, but it doesn’t really do me much good because I can’t get to the kinds of places I like. Of course, to some degree I have bility. After all, the fact that I don’t like barbecue as much as burritos and I prefer walking to driving is a matter of taste and training. But Austin’s lack of accessibility—the lack from my perspective—is the fault of others, too, It’s the fault of land use planners, whose traditional approach to zoning seg- no one to blame but myself for Austin’s lack of ace regated rather than integrated land uses and whose long-range plans have failed to coor- dinate the city’s growth. It’s the fault of big retailers, who prefer big sites near freeways and expressways with parking ample enough to meet Christmas-season demand. It’s the fault of developers, who favor the fringe of the city where the land is cheap and plentiful. It’s the fault of my fellow Austinites who haven't demanded the things I miss (partly because they don’t know what they're missing) and who are perfectly happy to drive. And it’s the fault of transportation planners, who have focused their attention on increasing road capacity to accommodate ever-increasing traffic. This approach might increase accessibility in the short run, but new freeways and expressways have enabled lower-density development throughout the city and have pushed the edge of the city outward. The resulting increase in mileage between activities and the automobile-orien- tation of the development that has occurred have killed off almost all nonautomobile alternatives. Not only does this mean that accessibility declines, it means that automobile use increases, which means that congestion increases, which means that automobile travel times increase, which means that eventually accessibility declines even further. The net result is that despite all that road construction, it’s getting harder to get places. SIGNS OF CHANGE The problem is that transportation planners—in Austin and just about everywhere else—have historically focused their efforts on enhancing mobility, particularly auto- mobile mobility, with little understanding of or thought for the long-run impact on acces- sibility. Fortunately, we are seeing encouraging signs of a broadening perspective, a growing awareness of the role of the transportation system in the development process and in the creation of livable communities. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) has helped to propagate the concept of a single, integrated transportation system, rather than a collection of competing modes. Although automobile—or more precisely highway and freeway—mobility is still the primary focus of the federal program (as shown by the breakdown of funding), ISTEA emphasizes transit and other nonautomobile modes as well. Expanded alternatives to the automobile and improved coordination among modes will create a greater range of choice, and more choices in the transportation system will enhance accessibility. A growing recognition of the importance of land use broadens the discussion further. Transportation planners increasingly view transportation and land use as com- plementary components of the larger metropolitan system. The question transportation