The meaning of 'transportation' is changing

Just as the United States was reshaped by freight railroads in the 19th century and by highways in the 20th,  America is now starting to revolve around another set of mobility choices, says Tom Downs, in a commentary distributed by Citiwire.net.

"Walking, biking and transit are about to become the next wave of transportation to shape our urban areas," writes Downs, chairman of the North American Board of Veolia Transportation and a former president of Amtrak. 

Downs observes:

According to housing and location preference surveys, the younger crowd wants to be in the center of things — downtown. They want cafes, restaurants, entertainment, and other young people to socialize with. They want walkable communities with parks; they want bike trails; they want to bike to work; and they want transit.

At the aging boomer cutting edge, what are we interested in? For boomers, preferences split almost down the middle. Half of the 50-60 somethings want to move to a larger house in a semi rural area. They wanted to build their “Dream House”, the house they wanted all their life, but deferred it to raise their children. The other half want to move to a central urban area with a walkable, transit- accessible life style. They want easy access to shopping, food, music, art, and health care. ...

Denser development, more walkable neighborhoods, better small-scale retail, sophisticated transit, and neighborhood amenities like parks, and the “new” libraries, seem to be the right market response.

The result is that planners and governments must begin to think differently. New preferences in how to get around will have to incorporated into economic development. He says:

If the transportation component of your local economic development planning is uninspiring, if it puts vague hope in some new roads, if it ignores transit, and if less than one percent of your combined transportation investments are in the growth modes of biking and walking, you do not have a transportation component to your economic development strategy.

Downs provides tips on how governments should go about accommodating the shift in popular preferences:

Most successful regions start with mapping the way people are walking, biking and using transit in the same way we used to count cars: Look at the flow and the demand. Plan sidewalks with walking in mind. Repair the sidewalks that are falling apart. (It is actually pretty cheap to do.) And how about transit that allows riders to track buses and trains in real time on their cell phones? How about bike accessible transit? How about signal coordination for buses? How about setting a goal for the percent of commuters who bike to work?

He acknowledges that most planners "say that their weather is not conducive to biking," but he believes they're wrong: "the second highest percentage of commuters who bike to work is in Minneapolis (winter) 3.4 percent. Portland, Oregon (rain) is, of course, first with 4.5 percent."

He urges cities and regions to recognize that "demographics, energy, prices, and competitive advantage" are ushering in a new age — one in which biking, walking, and transit will together constitute the new mode.