Lack of money to build streets impedes regional transformation

Even in smart growth strongholds like Portland, Oregon, new walkable neighborhoods are rare because of scant funds.

One of the keys to reducing automobile travel — and thus cutting greenhouse gas emissions — is the creation of relatively dense neighborhoods where people can reach destinations on foot or by mass transit. But a shortage of funds to build local streets is making it difficult to develop more than a sprinkling of such neighborhoods, even in the regions that want them.

That was the provocative analysis offered by Stuart Gwin, senior planner in the Portland Bureau of Transportation, during a Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) transportation summit in downtown Portland, Oregon Nov. 4-6, which brought together 170 new urbanists and transportation specialists from throughout North America.

For roughly 20 years, metropolitan Portland has been viewed as the epitome of smart growth. Gwin, however, told the summit that leaders in the region are finding it nearly impossible to convert many areas outside of downtown into mixed use precincts where people can readily do without a car.

A chief reason, he said, is the daunting cost of building street networks. Most of the places that

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