Making Better Communities

Infrastructure and land use development are inextricable. New highways, new rail transit lines and water and sewer services increase both accessibility and land values. As a result, new land developments are usually approved in such corridors and service areas by local governments.

The potential cumulative impacts of new infrastructure projects are not always recognized, however, due to the often incremental manner in which they are planned, permitted and designed. The resulting land development pattern from this process has created new kinds of issues, such as the impacts of suburban sprawl and increased vehicle miles traveled, and the concomitant effects.

Strategic approaches to land use and infrastructure planning and new tools have evolved recently to deal with these issues and effects. These tools address ways to minimize vehicle miles traveled and travel times, provide greater mode choices, reduce the costs of urban infrastructure, channel new growth where it is planned for and desired (in corridors with existing services) and keep it out of areas where it is not planned for and not desired (conservation areas, areas without services). The overall purpose is to create more choices in livable, and perhaps more walkable and affordable communities.

The above concerns are being expressed in many developed nations. For example, according to a national survey conducted for the American Planning Association (APA) and the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) released December 1, 2000, more than 58 percent of 1,000 U.S. voters surveyed last October wanted to create and improve transportation alternatives such as light rail, bus systems, bike paths and pedestrian walkways. Over half (53 percent) also favored new laws to manage growth at the local level and 55 percent favored legislation to contain land use or urban growth. (See www.planning.org for full results.) Clearly, the nexus of land use and infrastructure planning is being more widely understood by both planning and engineering professionals and, now more than ever before, by the interested public.

In this issue of PB Network, we highlight various Parsons Brinckerhoff projects that have or will have positive impacts on the built environment. "Context sensitive design" is merely a new name for what many of our talented planners and engineers have been doing all along. At PB, we believe that "Making Better Communities through Contextual Infrastructure Planning and Design" is a common goal of our company and many of our public agency clients.

The articles in this issue demonstrate how we help achieve this goal. They are presented in two related sections:

• Contextual Infrastructure Planning and Design
• Land Use and Growth Management.

The first section deals with highway aesthetics and much more. Hal Kassoff sets the stage with "Making Highway Design More Context Sensitive." Hal's premise is that we need to make a highway fit into its environment and enhance it, rather than just "impact" it. A simple premise, but difficult to pull off, given traditional design standards and regulated practices. Hal was formerly administrator of the Maryland State Highway Administration, which has become one of the leaders in achieving contextual design of its new transportation facilities. Ian Wilson's article explains how UK highway designs have some flexibility in the way geometric standards are applied in different contexts and situations.

Also in this section, Joan Witt shows how to blend complex engineering challenges and aesthetics into community- friendly solutions in Arizona. The theme of Jeff Rowlands' article is similar, although the details and project differ dramatically. The remainder of the first section includes other illustrative articles by PB staffers who are proving that contextual infrastructure planning and design can enhance community development.

The second section deals with integrating transportation facilities with supportive land use patterns. Sam Seskin, head of PB's Land Use Center in Portland, Oregon, prepared a guidebook with practical suggestions about how to carry out land use analyses in conjunction with transportation planning. In his article, he discusses qualitative methods, geographic information systems, formal land use models and other tools that can be used to gain a sharper look at the land use consequences of a transportation infrastructure decision. In a pair of articles, one by Katherine Still and the other by Lawrence Conrad, the authors look at how highways affect land use and the reverse. Other authors look at the relationship of transit planning to land uses that supports transit use, conducting buildout analyses as a planning tool to revise land use plans and zoning maps to coincide with what a community actually desires, and using the National Environmental Policy Act (U.S., 1969) as a tool for achieving sustainable development. These articles deal with the critical nexus of transportation and land use development and what it means for creating better communities with more travel mode choices.

This issue of PB Network is sponsored by three of PB's practice area networks: PAN 38, Urban and Land Use Planning; PAN 21, Highway Design; and PAN 02, Architecture and Urban Design. Its publication is especially timed for distribution at the National Planning Conference sponsored by the American Planning Association in New Orleans in March 2001. APA's central theme is about planning for better communities. This issue shows how PB integrates land use planning and transportation planning and design to positively affect development patterns, mobility and livability.


As guest editors of this issue, we speak for our fellow technical reviewers, Greg Hoer, Senior Professional Associate (Baltimore, Maryland); Hal Kassoff, PB's Highway Program Area Manager (Washington, D.C.); and Jeff Rowlands, Technical Director (Cardiff, Wales); in saying we hope you will enjoy delving through this important compendium of recent thinking about contextual infrastructure design. These are practical techniques to make better communities for us all.

Allan A. Hodges Senior Professional Associate, Immediate past Coordinator, PAN 38 Urban and Land Use Planning

Jake A. Keller Professional Associate, Principal Project Manager Coordinator, PAN 21 Highway Design and Engineering