Transit: Innovative Local Programs
There are hundreds of organizations in the United States working locally and regionally to encourage planners and policy makers to create sustainable transportation systems that would provide real mobility options for residents, and produce collateral benefits such as lower greenhouse gas emissions, improved air quality, better physical health, and neighborhoods rich in services and amenities. In order for planners and policymakers to consider these options, however, there must be a perceived market demand for sustainable development. Incentive products for individuals to take advantage of the assets and convenience of a place are a way of encouraging a reshaping of the market. Products such as the location efficient mortgage (LEM), discussed in the following section, and business concepts such as car-sharing are two innovative, market-based approaches for helping households realize the benefits of living in a compact, well-designed community.
The diversity of such initiatives is remarkable. They range from encouraging non-motorized forms of transportation with enhanced bicycle and pedestrian facilities, encouraging carpooling with high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, setting aside dedicated bus lanes, making it easier for commuters to travel across several jurisdictions using two or more modes with a single fare, (intermodal transit pass programs) downtown shuttle bus service, car sharing, and commuter station renovation.
SUSTAINABLE SURFACE TRANSPORTATION PROGRAMS:
Car Sharing. Residents of high density neighborhoods can rent cars for very short periods at much less than the cost of owning a vehicle.
Intermodal Transit Passes. Commuters are more likely to use transit across multiple jurisdictions if the fare structure is uniform.
Urban Design. Improvements at the interface of transit and pedestrian environments, such as bus bulbs and sheltered transit stops, attract riders.
Travel demand measures, such as employer-sponsored transit pass programs and other such incentives, share the goal of encouraging alternatives to driving. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's "Metrochek" program of employer-sponsored transit benefits has recently experienced a dramatic upsurge in pass sales, as a result of a year 2000 executive order mandating that tax-free transit benefits be made available to all federal employees. Projects, like the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI), build on the presence of transit as an essential dimension of a neighborhood's pedestrian friendliness.
Transit use may also be encouraged through the use of innovative financial instruments. The location efficient mortgage can reduce the cost of home ownership anywhere that lenders recognize the transportation savings accruing to households located near transit service.
In some instances, simple urban design improvements can work in favor of transit. The city of Portland addressed problems of pedestrian congestion at bus stops by constructing a number of bus bulbs, projections of the sidewalk into a lane of the street, permitting transit riders to stand aside of foot traffic, and relieving buses of the need to pull into and away from the curb in heavy traffic. Two years after completion of the project, ridership was up 19 percent.
When San Francisco redesigned Upper Market Street to replace a bus with a MUNI streetcar line in 1995, ridership on the streetcar nearly doubled over that of the bus it replaced. By correcting for the lack of urban design elements such as pocket parks, pedestrian walkways, or pedestrian friendly transit stops, and working to increase the pleasantness of the transit experience, such projects improve the livability of neighborhoods—a concept given wide circulation since the middle 1980's by New Urbanist architects. A crucial part of neighborhood livability is a reduced dependency on automobile transport.
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for links to organizations working to enhance transit use and curb
auto-dependent urban development.