Articulo: Livability to Become Requirement in Federal Transportation Policy

Transit can have a broad impact on community livability, like this bus stop in Los Angeles, which catalyzed nearby development after simple improvements were made

For years, large-scale transit projects submitted for funding in the United States have been evaluated primarily on cost and the amount of time they save commuters. While these criteria may seem perfectly reasonable, the cheapest, quickest transit route is not necessarily the one that best serves communities along the way.

Two weeks ago, the Obama Administration made a dramatic policy shift on how to evaluate major transportation projects. In a statement on January 13^th, U.S Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that, “We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live.”

Wow! For many years, Project for Public Spaces has advocated for greater community involvement in the transportation planning process, beginning with our 1997 publication, “The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities.” Reflecting on this report, Senior Vice President Steve Davies noted, “We first had to define what livability was, because it means different things to different people. It was through this process that we first developed the place diagram, which has become one of PPS’ most influential tools.”

Twelve years later, a key theme of the report–transportation projects can positively affect the livability of communities–is poised to become a part of federal policy. PPS.org sat down with PPS Vice President Cynthia Nikitin to gauge her reaction to this exciting news and discuss the implications for the transportation planning process in the future.

http://blog.pps.org