Transportation is the topic for a community conversation during June and July, 2008. The goal is to develop a new regional agenda for transportation in Northeast Ohio. Please go to the Transportation Regional Agenda forum to contribute your ideas and comments. The best thinking will be incorporated into this page. (Updated 6.8.08)

Seeking a sustainable transportation system for the age of climate change

Where are we going in Northeast Ohio? How can we develop a sustainable transportation system that will help us rebuild our communities and meet 21st century needs for access, economic development, and environmental quality?

We start with the belief that the fundamentals of transportation are changing in serious and permanent ways:

• Rising gas prices: The end of cheap oil is causing people to seek cheaper transportation options as never before.
• Falling gas tax revenues: As people cut back on gasoline purchases, gas tax revenues fall. The Ohio Department of Transportation is heading toward budget crisis. It seems that the self-fulfilling prophecy of highway funding (more roads, more driving, more gas tax revenue, more funds for more roads, and so on) is collapsing.
• Climate change: The transportation sector produces about 33% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. This must be reduced substantially – as soon as possible.
• Air pollution: Northeast Ohio is struggling to meet federal air quality standards, and vehicle emissions are a big part of the problem.
• Public health: Obesity has become an epidemic, and our car-dependent lifestyle is a major cause.
• Rebirth of cities: Cities in Northeast Ohio are fighting back from decades of disinvestment. They need transportation funding that helps create livable, walkable places, instead of promoting the suburban sprawl that sucks the life out of cities.

So what’s next?

What will be the features of a more sustainable transportation system? Here are some ideas:

• Linking land use and transportation: We will need regional land-use planning to promote the development of communities that don’t force people to drive so much. If your destinations are close by, you don’t need so much costly transportation.
• Flexible funding: The Ohio Constitution restricts state gas tax funds to highways. We need flexible transportation funding for the best ways to move people and goods.
• Complete streets: Streets should serve diverse modes of transportation – cars, transit, bikes, and pedestrians – so people have more choices.
• Context-sensitive design: Transportation infrastructure should enhance the livability and attractiveness of places.
• Transit-oriented design: Some of the most sustainable transportation investments promote high-density development around transit stops.
• Passenger rail: When will we ever get a high-speed passenger rail network in the Midwest?
• Affordability: Families in Ohio are spending as much on transportation as on housing. They need more affordable ways to get what they need.

The above begins to suggest the outlines of a more sustainable transportation system. What features would you add? What will need to happen to allow a transition to a new system? Contribute your ideas here.

The history of cities extends back some 7,000 to 10,000 years. For all but the last fifty years, land use and transportation have been closely connected; first in the dense, mixed-use Walking City, whose limited transportation options and travel speeds ensured that urban land use remained closely integrated, and later in the Transit City, with its fixed train and tram systems, which also ensured that development was closely tied to quite narrow transportation corridors. The advent of the automobile, however, and to a lesser extent the diesel bus, meant that for the first time in history, houses and businesses could be located almost anywhere, because personalized transportation could be used to join them together. Thus the transportation-land use connection was broken, and automobile dependence became established. But, as cities were to discover, this came at a great cost and is now seen as a fundamental cause of unsustainability in cities.
— Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities

Local resources
ODOT Transportation Priorities Task Force
Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency
Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study
Eastgate Regional Council of Governments

National resources
Citizens' guide to transportation opportunities in your community (PDF 854KB)
Surface Transportation Policy Project