SMART GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION: CAN WE GET THERE FROM HERE?

Abstract

INTRODUCTION As the U.S. Supreme Court has observed, [D]riving an automobile [is] a virtual necessity for most Americans. (1) Transportation and land use laws and policies have played a primary role in creating this dependence on motor vehicles; they have spurred scattered suburban development and promoted driving. At the same time these laws and policies have made other transportation options--such as public transit, bicycling, and walking--less practical, desirable, and safe. (2) As a result, driving is often a necessity rather than a choice. The dominant transportation and development approaches of the past fifty years have offered significant benefits, including job creation, economic and increased mobility. However, the adverse consequences of these approaches are substantial. These consequences include severe air and water pollution; accelerating land consumption; worsening traffic congestion; record expenditures of public funds for road projects and far-flung development; isolation of senior citizens and others who cannot drive; lack of access to jobs for low income individuals; deteriorating older suburban and urban areas; and threats to national security due to dependence on imported oil. (3) New paradigms are emerging to address these shortcomings. Changes to transportation policies have begun to move to a more sustainable (4) approach that reduces subsidies for driving, offers a broader range of transportation choices, and addresses the links between transportation, land use development, environmental quality, and community livability. (5) In addition, a flurry of state and local initiatives have begun to provide alternatives to scattered development and excessive motor vehicle use. (6) These initiatives, often lumped together under the label growth, (7) vary widely. (8) They include efforts to develop a more balanced transportation system; revitalize existing communities; preserve open space and farmland; and promote development that offers a variety of land uses in close proximity and that can support public transit, bicycling, and walking. Public opinion polls and ballot box returns indicate strong public support for these steps. (9) Smart growth is not anti-growth, and sustainable transportation is not necessarily anti-automobile. Rather, these paradigms seek to reduce the adverse impacts of current land use and transportation patterns and practices, while preserving their benefits. Central to these efforts is a focus on reorienting current public policies that promote costly and destructive transportation and land use development patterns towards more economically efficient, equitable, and environmentally sound outcomes that strengthen communities and enhance the quality of life. Sustainable transportation and smart growth are linked. Smarter growth patterns will be difficult to achieve without more sustainable transportation approaches; significant transportation improvements will be difficult to achieve without more sensible development practices. The first Part of this Article provides an overview of current transportation policies, as well as their inconsistency with the smart growth approach. Part II examines steps that can be taken to create a more efficient and less destructive transportation system, as well as some of the hurdles to transportation reform. Part III concludes the Article by considering recent events in Atlanta--the country's most sprawling metropolitan area--that highlight both opportunities and hurdles for smart growth and sustainable transportation. I. HOW DID WE GET HERE? ROADS, DRIVING, AND SPRAWL Rapidly rising motor vehicle use and exploding suburban development have transformed the United States since World War II. (10) These trends are integrally linked and mutually reinforcing: building more roads leads to more sprawl; more sprawl leads to more driving. …