Chicken or Egg on Auto-Oriented Land Use Planning

The good folks at the always interesting Planetizen discuss the chicken and egg nature of doing land use planning for encouraging more people to walk, bike and use public transit (People Like Cars, and There's Not Much We Can Do About It, May 7, 2008, by Christian Peralta). Says Peralta:

"Even though many planners want to think that lots of people would relinquish their cars if they just had a light rail stop nearby, I feel like most Americans remain whole-heartedly committed to private auto ownership, single-family homes, big box retail stores, and the slew of other elements that have created the modern urban landscape."

So he asks if this is a chicken and egg situation where the physical landscape has to change before people consider changing their auto-oriented lifestyle. He seems to posit that it is a combination of city design, policy that increases the costs associated with driving and education to encourage behavior change. Most planners and transportation folks would agree.

I'd say its not so much chicken or egg. Planners do indeed need to move forward with designing for density and more around people and less around cars. They also need to coordinate these efforts with building more transit, bikeways and pedestrian-friendly environments and providing information and services that encourage their use. As an example, here in Arlington we believe that creating the conditions where more people bike, walk and take public transit rest on these three things:

1. Great planning that focuses density in transit corridors,
2. Providing a robust amount of multi-modal transportation infrastructure that focuses on people not vehicles, and
3. Great educational TDM programs.

All together these three things help contribute to a more vibrant, growing, prosperous and sustainable community.

Additional related information.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and is a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.