Livability

Livability in transportation is about using the quality, location, and type of transportation facilities and services available to help achieve broader community goals such as access to good jobs, affordable housing, quality schools, and safe streets. This includes addressing road safety and capacity issues through better planning and design, maximizing and expanding new technologies, and using travel demand management (TDM) approaches. It also includes developing high quality public transportation to foster economic development, and community design that offers residents and workers the full range of transportation choices. And, it involves strategically connecting the modal pieces—bikeways, pedestrian facilities, transit services, and roadways—into a truly intermodal, interconnected system.

Sustainable transportation provides exceptional mobility and access to meet development needs without compromising the quality of life of future generations. A sustainable transportation system is safe, healthy, and affordable, while limiting emissions and use of new and nonrenewable resources. It meets the needs of the present without depleting resources or harming the environment. It also considers the long-term economic health and equity—or social fairness—of a community. “Smart growth” focuses growth in existing communities to avoid sprawl; and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. Its goals are to achieve a unique sense of community and place; expand the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices; and to equitably distribute the costs. 

In 2009 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced an unprecedented agreement to implement joint housing and transportation initiatives. With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joining the partnership later in the year, the three agencies agreed to work together to ensure that the goals of gaining better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs are met while simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change. DOT, HUD and EPA have created a high-level interagency partnership to better coordinate federal transportation, environmental protection, and housing investments and to identify strategies that promote and put into action the following Livability Principles:

·         Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable, and economical transportation choices to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote public health.

·         Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location-and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.

·         Enhance economic competitiveness. Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services, and other basic needs by workers, as well as expanded business access to markets.

·         Support existing communities. Target Federal funding toward existing communities—through strategies like transit oriented, mixed-use development, and land recycling—to increase community revitalization and the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.

·         Coordinate and leverage Federal policies and investment. Align Federal policies and funding to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage funding, and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy.

·         Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods.

Climate Change

Greenhouse gases (GHG) form a "blanket" of pollution that traps heat in the atmosphere that may cause climate instability characterized by severe weather events such as storms, droughts, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. Climate change is a worldwide concern because if it continues, there will be significant impacts on people, natural resources and economic conditions around the globe.  While the magnitude of these potential changes is difficult to predict, there is growing recognition that these climate changes will dramatically affect many aspects of our daily lives. 

The transportation system is the second-largest contributor to GHG emissions in the United States, and the majority—approximately 72 percent—of the transportation sector’s emissions are generated by road transportation, including both passenger and freight travel. As the second-largest contributor to GHG emissions, responsibility falls on the transportation sector to contribute its share towards the solution of the problem.  Strategies and improvement projects that target climate change are also essential to the long term performance of the transportation system itself. Issues to be considered include Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) growth, congestion, changing development and land use patterns, sea level rise, accelerated aging of infrastructure from climate change, and rapidly changing fuel and vehicle technologies. Most demand management and system management strategies reduce GHG emissions, though not nearly to a significant extent. 

Regardless of targeted actions, performance measures can assess whether or not objectives related to climate change are met.  Performance measures can be unique to climate change and energy efficiency goals (for expamle, GHG emissions per capita, petroleum user per VMT, percent of alternative fuel vehicles) or relate to traditional transportation planning goals such as congestion or air quality (for example, transit mode share, average vehicle occupancy).  Performance measures can be used to evaluate the existing system, compare and select alternatives, and measure the progress of the plan throughout its implementation.