A Politician's—and Citizen's—Guide to Urban Transportation

(by Gordon Price)

Pity the politician who promises to fix the urban transportation problem. Traffic congestion may be their constituents' constant frustration, but given the resources and policy levers available to local government, there's only so much that can be done, and it's not nearly enough.

We can't just build our way out of congestion, and so we speak highly of alternative transportation options and better land-use policies. But these take time, and meanwhile drivers demand action. Their conclusion: someone do something!

Voters, however, want their infrastructure carrots before the fiscal sticks. Yet given the nature of our vehicle-based transportation system, with continually expanding demand, concrete solutions are often temporary or ineffectual—and staggeringly expensive. A billion dollars isn't much in the transportation game.

Politicians intuitively appreciate that transportation policy is rooted in feelings. Feelings about our cars, feelings about our homes and neighborhoods (places made possible by the car), and feelings (often guilt or frustration) about the consequences of our choices.

Expectations and emotions are shaped by advertising; issues are framed by media. Without an appreciation of the often unrecognized assumptions inherent in our auto-centric society, we won't understand the real nature of the problem.

THE PROBLEM

The Critical Expectation

Politicians are faced with a paradox: the pursuit of self-interest leads to unfortunate collective consequences that threaten the individual benefits achieved. Simply put: As more people want to drive the open road, the less likely it is for the road to be open.

Vehicle miles traveled around the United States have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years, compared with a two percent increase in new highway construction. The US General Accounting Office predicts that road congestion in the United States will triple in 15 years, even if capacity is increased by 20 percent.

In the Greater Vancouver Regional District, peak traffic volume is estimated to rise 60 percent in the next two decades—and that's after we've made substantial improvements and added capacity to both our road and transit systems.

Yet advertising, that most powerful of influences, markets mobility and freedom. We see the most beautiful images of the car on the open road. Those ads sell many things—and youth—but every ad reinforces one big idea: the car is never constrained by an excess number of other cars. You never see the car caught in congestion.

The freely moving car on the open road is one of our society's most hallowed images, synonymous with success, reinforced over many generations, marketed to the world—and yet increasingly frustrated at every turn. Cars and trucks are getting bigger and more powerful, engineered to be capable of speeds well beyond any legal limit, even as the roads become more clogged and average speeds decrease. This disconnect between promise and reality has produced responses of both rage and passivity, with an underlying sense of betrayal. This is not the way it was supposed to be…

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The above is the first page of Price's Guide to Urban Transportation. [We added the images to this page.] The full 10-page Guide is available in pdf format here. We encourage you to read it. Price gives thoughtful guidance about what can be done to address our traffic problems.

(Gordon Price is a writer who served five terms on the Vancouver City Council—from 1986 to 2002. He also served as a director of Translink, the regional transportation authority. He is currently Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, and is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia. You can find out more about him by visiting his website, which is here. There's lots of good stuff on this site.)