Evaluation of Strategies for Integrating Transportation and Land Use Planning on State, Metropolitan Region, and Local Levels

Focus Area

Environmental Considerations in Planning

Subcommittee

All

Status

Archived

Cost

$100k-$249k

Timeframe

Unknown

Research Idea Scope

TERI Administrator Note (Feb 2009) Pending project: NCHRP 8-36 (86) Corridor Approaches to Integrating Land Transportation and Land Use

Several states and metropolitan regions have implemented programs that combine land use, transportation, and environmental policies into integrated plans and programs. Examples include the State of Oregon’s state and regional planning requirements; the State of Maryland’s smart growth program; and Atlanta Georgia’s Regional Transportation Authority. These programs have been in place or under way for several years, long enough to evaluate their effectiveness.

 
At the same time, local jurisdictions continue to develop comprehensive plans that often are not integrated with regional and state planning strategies. There are currently few planning tools and processes that address integration of local comprehensive plans into state or regional planning, particularly tools to quantify the impacts of local decisions on regional planning, to prioritize these investments, and link them to the regional vision. 

The proposed research would document and evaluate groundbreaking state initiatives, and explore new linkages to strengthen local planning to broader regional strategies. The evaluation would be designed to help decision makers and practitioners understand the effectiveness of land use policies, planning processes, environmental policies, transportation demand management plans, capital investment, and technological innovation are effective. It would examine the prospect of incorporating transportation innovations, including new types of vehicles and mobility services, such as smart car sharing and smart paratransit, dynamic ridesharing, and neighborhood vehicles.
 
Four key components of integrating local comprehensive plans into the regional planning processes could include:
  1. Examining the state of the practice for integrating local transportation and land use plans and policies into regional plans and models;
  2. Identifying strategies that have been successfully used to address conflict resolution associated with incorporating competing local transportation and land use plans into a regional planning process;
  3. Examining the state of the practice for developing critera for TIP project selection that is sensitive to urban form; and
  4. Examining the institutional arrangements that support successful processes for developing, prioritizing and approving implementation documents such as local capital improvement plans, TIPs, and long-range transportation plans and state TIPs.

Suggested By

Transportation Research Board 2002 Environmental Research Needs Conference Notes

[email protected]

Submitted

04/28/2006