Forum tackles twin challenges of transportation and sprawl

Better coordination of land use and transportation policies and greater accountability in transportation investments are critical to solving Maryland’s challenges with both growth and transportation, according to participants at a forum held Thursday April 2 in Baltimore by 1000 Friends of Maryland.

The forum featured presentations by John D. Porcari, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, Mike Burke, Projects Director for U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Maryland) and Ilana Preuss, Outreach and Field Director for Transportation For America. Klaus Philipsen, Principal of ArchPlan, Inc. and a founding member of 1000 Friends’ Board of Directors, moderated the forum. Seventy-five people attended the forum, including transportation and engineering consultants, planners and transit advocates.

“The ground is shifting as we speak”, said Philipsen in his opening remarks and emphasized how 1000 Friends of Maryland believe that smart growth can help to save money and be more efficient.  He called change of our inefficient development patterns the “silver bullet” to solve our  transportation crunch. “The dramatic growth of land area used and of miles driven is certainly not sustainable, neither fiscally nor environmentally.”

Between 1972 and 2005 Maryland lost as much land to development as in the entire previous 350-year history of the state. From 1980 to 2005 total vehicle miles traveled nearly doubled, increasing by 97 percent. Transportation is also the largest and fastest growing source of global warming emissions in the U.S., accounting for about 28 percent of total global warming pollution. Studies have shown that more efficient, mixed-use development patterns can reduce car travel by 20 to 40 percent.

But Maryland is moving in the right direction by using its $610 million federal stimulus funds for transportation to maintain its existing roads and transit lines instead of building new sprawl-inducing roads. “The first call on capital dollars should be to fix what you have first,” said Porcari. Maintenance and repair projects also create more jobs per dollar than new highway construction.

While Maryland is moving in the right direction, forum speakers emphasized that more changes are needed to increase transportation choices and provide more housing options in transit areas. For example, the federal “New Starts” program that provides funding for new transit projects needs to broaden its criteria to take into account how transit can spur community revitalization and increase surrounding real estate values.

As Congress looks to reauthorize the federal surface transportation program later this year, Porcari also emphasized the need for less bureaucracy and more accountability. “We have too many program silos that could easily be collapsed into one program,” he said. “Give us more discretion but hold us more accountable.”