Because of President Obama’s continuation and adaptation of the Livability Initiative, policy towards transportation and infrastructure will become more diverse. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHoodhas announced that policy will no longer favor motorized transportation, writing that “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.” This new focus will help break down the barriers to pedestrian traffic.
Source: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63290
Department of Transportation Policy Statement, March 15th, 2010
Feb 232010
“Surplus wealth enables people to persist in building wasteful, inadequate communities and then compensate for the communities’ failings by buying private vehicles and driving all over the metropolitan area in search of what ought to be available close to home”
-Philip Langdon, A Better Place to Live (1994)
Feb 072010
In an effort to mend the state’s traffic and financial issues Virginia has implemented a policy effectively banning the development of new cul-de-sacs. Subdivisions will be required to have multiple entrances and through streets, connecting them to neighboring communities, schools and shopping areas.
With only one entrance to subdivisions, suburban cul-de-sacs create networks of high traffic roadways as private dead-end roads funnel directly into overburdened arterial roads. The current system “forces drivers to enter these traffic-choked roads to go even 50 yards or so to the neighborhood coffeehouse or elementary school.” Over the next few years this new policy will dramatically change Virginia’s suburban landscape, minimizing stress on existing roadways, cutting costs of government services, increasing density, and likely increasing walkability in the suburbs.
Full Story: In Va., Vision of Suburbia at a Crossroads
The New York Times Recognizes Virginia’s Cul-De-Sac Ban as one of the Top Ideas of 2009
Source: The Washington Post, 22 March 2009
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