Transportation Demand Management
(published in the Missoulian, 11/96)
There's a new phrase in town: Transportation Demand Management (TDM). Briefly, the TDM concept covers a wide variety of possible options, all of which attempt to reduce our reliance on driving alone as the only way to get around. Why is this important? Simply put, the more car trips we all take alone, the more traffic we create and the more damage we do-to ourselves, to our community, and to the environment.
In a world with unlimited resources and plenty of room to expand, this might not be a problem. But in a place like Missoula, it's a very big problem and it hits us in several ways. First, gas tax only covers a fraction of the costs of serving those of us who drive. To pay the true costs, we would have to shell out between $4 and $7 per gallon. With our current level of motorist subsidy, it's clear that the more we drive, the more we break the bank. And make no mistake about it: we are driving more. Between 1969 and 1990, America's population grew by 21 percent while car trips per person grew by 72 percent and car miles per person grew by 65 percent. During the same period, the average number of occupants per car has steadily dropped.
Second, while widening roads is a popular way to "solve" the congestion that results from all these drive-alone trips, it doesn't really work. Wider roads help create new trips in several ways that ultimately require us to widen the roads again and again and add new "bypasses." For example, people who now combine trips in order to reduce their total driving time will be encouraged to separate those trips if driving becomes significantly easier. Similarly, those who currently forego certain trips or travel in off-hours because of the hassles of prime-time traffic will be more likely to take those trips and travel during rush hour. And many more people who live in town will be encouraged to "move to the country" if they can get back and forth more easily.
Third, road widening projects damage the fabric of our community in two important ways. Of course, looked at from a motorist's point of view, creating a wide road like South Reserve is a great service. You can really fly along-at least until you hit a bottleneck, which you will sooner or later. But look at Reserve Street from the perspective of someone who lives on one side and must get to the other. This wide road with its two-way suicide lane is a positive barrier to people who would like to walk for even a trip of a few blocks. As a result, people taking those short trips will be more likely to drive because walking is seen as scary, dangerous, suicidal. It's worth noting that many of the streets slated to get more lanes in the next twenty years run between or through neighborhoods. How many new car trips can we expect from nearby residents who will drive out of self-preservation?
The other way road widening projects damage our community is more subtle and long-term. As part of a general development pattern that reinforces a motoring view of the world through zoning and other means, these projects encourage car-oriented development. Car-oriented development often creates substantial barriers to all other modes: walking, bicycling, and transit. Compare, for example, the challenges of walking from the Bon to the County Courthouse with the challenges of walking from Ace Hardware in Tremper's Shopping Center to the Fairgrounds.
Car-oriented development puts the parking between the public sidewalk (assuming there is one) and the store entrance. So, the few hardy pedestrians must walk through a sea of asphalt and potentially dangerous backing cars to get where they're going. Many communities take this car orientation even further, separating the shops and the homes with 8-foot fences. But even if there is no fence, the shops typically turn their ugly dumpster-strewn backsides to the neighbors.
Perhaps more damaging yet, car-oriented development creates tremendous distances between places. The joys of "low-density living" go hand-in-hand with the necessity of driving everywhere. When we build our homes on 40,000 sq. ft. lots and push all commercial uses to the few main roads and surround them with large parking lots, we implicitly support driving and condemn walking. To understand the problem, pretend you live in one of the homes on East Pine Street. Within five minutes, you can walk to any one of the many restaurants and shops downtown. On the other hand, pretend you live off Mullan Road. Imagine yourself walking to Fudruckers, Taco Bell, or Costco. There's really no way around it: car-oriented development, such as that being created daily in Missoula County, virtually rules out walking, the most basic, least expensive, and most democratic form of transportation.
It might be fine if low-density car-dependent lifestyles only affected those who live that way. But there's yet another cruel irony at work. As the new Missoula transportation plan shows, many of the road widening and traffic speed-up projects hit those who live in higher density older areas and serve those living in low-density newer areas-who will be largely responsible for the increases in traffic. The dilemma originally presented to city residents in the transportation plan was a no-win choice: either accept clogged streets and traffic streaming through your neighborhoods or accept wider roads that cut your town to ribbons.
In this context, the TDM option combined with pedestrian- and transit-friendly land use policies makes a tremendous amount of sense. It's one way that those of us within the Missoula community can reduce our own contributions to the traffic problem. If each of us can cut out a couple of car trips each day, we can make a dramatic difference, staving off some of the worst of the road widening projects.
Some folks-largely those who live on the fringes or beyond-scoff and use absurd examples to deride TDM's potential, as well as that of alternate modes like walking, bicycling, and transit. They suggest that no one will use these modes---that Grandma won't walk to the store in a blizzard, that it's impossible to carry 500 pounds of books to work on a bike. But they're looking at the world through the twisted lens of their own lifestyle choices. The differences between Downtown and the 93 Strip clearly show that if we make the right choices, we can create attractive areas where people can and will walk, take the bus, or bicycle for at least some of their trips.
Imagine, if you will, the possible change in traffic levels and our sense of community pride if we re-created the deadzones of the 93 strip and North Reserve Street in the image of downtown. Imagine if we started filling in some of our asphalt wastelands with shops, offices, pocket parks, and possibly second-story apartments so that people felt comfortable strolling from one destination to the next. Imagine if we put in median refuges and curb bulbs on major roads to make sure folks on foot could get across.
Imagine if the circulator trolley could quickly whisk you from Southgate Mall to Downtown to the University or if a few of our smaller buses were retrofitted with neon undercarriage lights, big stereos, and food service and they cruised past the high schools at lunch time. Imagine if low pollution delivery vehicles served the food stores so you wouldn't have to haul all your purchases home yourself. Imagine if the Mall created a real Italian plaza by blowing the roof off and adding a second and possibly third story, complete with apartments, perhaps the new Partnership Health Center, and some small business offices.
In such an environment, traffic and its planning would take its true
place as a subordinate element in community life. People might just come
to Missoula because it was a great place, rather than a collection of convenient
easy-access big box stores. And just maybe some of the folks driving to
town from the distant suburbs would leave their cars at one spot while they
did at least some of their business on foot, on bus, or on bike.