This guide is intended to help demystify Regional Transportation Plans (RTP), explain key components and requirements, identify ways to incorporate health-promoting strategies into RTPs, and showcase short case studies of improving community health through RTPs. The guide is intended for public health and sustainable transportation professionals as well as local government officials. Ultimately, the guide should help decision-makers focus on strategies that not only improve transportation efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also have dramatic health and health equity benefits.
"The Great American Dream of cruising down the parkway, zipping from here to there at any time has given way to a true nightmare that is destroying the environment, costing billions and deeply impacting our personal well-being. Getting from A to B has never been more difficult, expensive or miserable. It doesn't have to be this way. Jeffrey Tumlin's book Sustainable Transportation Planning offers easy-to-understand, clearly explained tips and techniques that will allow us to quite literally take back our roads. Essential reading for anyone who wants to drive our transportation system out of the gridlock." -Marianne Cusato, home designer and author of Get Your House Right: Architectural Elements to Use and Avoid ?The book is full of useful ideas on nearly every page.? ? Bill DiBennedetto of Triple Pundit As transportations-related disciplines of urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, urban economics, and social policy have undergone major internal reform efforts in recent decades Written in clear, easy-to-follow language, this book provides planning practitioners with the tools they need to achieve their cities? economic development, social equity and ecological sustainability goals. Starting with detailed advice for improving each mode of transportation, the book offers guidance on balancing the needs of each mode against each other, whether on a downtown street, or a small town neighborhood, or a regional network.
In the past two decades, the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region has prospered into one of the world's leading economies. But the benefits of this economic resurgence have been uneven, leaving many behind and resulting in problems that could curtail the region's future prosperity. The Regional Plan Association's Fourth Regional Plan is an ambitious assessment that reviews the most persistent problems and provides a guide to correcting them. Topics discussed include a crisis of housing affordability, overburdened and deteriorating infrastructure, vulnerability to climate change, and a pervasive distrust in government. The plan offers solutions including how to bring nearly two million jobs to the region by 2040, while promoting shared prosperity, well-being and sustainability across the region. The Fourth Regional Plan continues the Regional Plan Association's tradition of providing concrete ideas for improving the tri-state region. Highlights include radically restructuring the MTA and Port Authority to support creation of a modernized and expanded subway and regional rail network; significantly increasing the availability of housing; and expanding the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to fund climate change initiatives. This highly visual, comprehensive plan will help elected officials, policymakers, and advocates guide any region to a more equitable, sustainable, healthy, and prosperous future.
This study compares Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Regional Transportation Plans (RTP) and planning processes in selected regions of California. The study included seventeen MPOs in order to provide a balance of geographical location, growth rate, transit orientation size, density and air quality conformity status. Recommendations are presented for the following six areas: 1) public participation in the RTP process; 2) the frequency of updates; 3) scoring criteria for projects; 4) the use of planning data in the RTP; 5) coordination with ports and airports; and, 6) the evolving role of MPOs as it relates to the preparation of the RTP.
Transportation, Land Use, and Environmental Planning examines the practices and policies linking transportation, land use and environmental planning needed to achieve a healthy environment, thriving economy, and more equitable and inclusive society. It assesses best practices for improving the performance of city and regional transportation systems, looking at such issues as public transit and non-motorized travel investments, mixed use and higher density urban development, radically transformed vehicles, and transportation systems. The book lays out the growing need for greater integration of transportation, land use, and environmental planning, looking closely at changing demographic needs, public health concerns, housing affordability, equity, and livability. In addition, strategies for achieving these desired outcomes are presented, including urban design and land use planning, regional and corridor-level transit plans, bike and pedestrian improvements, demand management strategies, and emerging technologies and services. The final part of the book examines implementation challenges, considering lessons from the US and around the globe at both local and regional levels. Introduces never-before-published research Offers best practices for transit, cycling, urban design and housing provision Assesses emerging developments, such as smart cities, new vehicle technologies, automated highways and transportation sharing Examines the institutional and political dimensions of sustainability planning at the urban and regional levels Utilizes case studies from around the world that show alternative ways forward
