Greater local planning capacity is necessary to support the creation of sustainable land use plans, the development of efficient transportation projects, and comprehensive review and mitigation of development proposals and their transportation impacts.  The land use decisions that drive transportation are, for the most part, made locally, and municipalities are the proponents of many transportation projects, especially roadway projects.  Municipal officials and staff must have a better understanding of issues such as cumulative impacts, secondary land use impacts, and transportation demand management; and they need access to a wider variety of tools such as impact fees, a mitigation toolkit, enforceable mitigation agreements, and design standards that support alternative modes.  

Currently, many local officials and staff review projects have little capacity to address transportation issues in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.  Municipal master plans, where they exist, have a section on “circulation,” but few master plans contain quantitative analysis of factors such as trip generation or mode split.  Local boards may require traffic studies for large or complex development proposals, but may be unable to interpret the results (even with the assistance of a consulting engineer) or evaluate the cumulative impacts of multiple developments.  Permit approvals may be conditioned on the implementation of mitigation measures such as a transportation demand management program, but lack mechanisms to enforce those agreements or monitor the effectiveness of the mitigation.  

Where congestion or safety issues exist, cities and towns may seek project development assistance from the MPO, state agencies, or private consultants.  However, the divided structure of state agencies and the roadway-oriented culture of the engineering industry often preclude the creation of solutions that fully integrate land use changes and alternative modes with roadway capacity expansion.  As a result, municipalities end up with auto-oriented solutions that fail to creatively meet their needs, do not represent best practices of context-sensitive design, and have little chance of being funded by the MPO.  

Comprehensive integration of land use and transportation planning at the local level begins with the application of planning and decision support tools described in the strategies on Coordinated Plans (1) and Compact Growth (5).  These tools can estimate the transportation impacts of alternative scenarios and allow for the creation of land use plans designed to maximize use of existing infrastructure and increase the potential for alternative modes such as transit, walking, and biking.  These plans, with specific expectations for the density, design, and diversity of development, will establish a capital planning framework for mitigation even before development proposals are made.  

Cities and towns also need new tools to evaluate and mitigate the transportation impacts of new development.  With the assistance of a “mitigation toolkit,” municipalities could critically assess traffic impacts, establish specific targets for transportation outcomes such as trip generation, and identify the mitigation measures that will most effectively meet those targets.  Those measures might include capital improvements and/or transportation demand management techniques, both funded directly by the developer or through impact fees.  Legally binding developer agreements and monitoring will be necessary to ensure success and compliance.  

6.a    MAPC should develop a mitigation tool kit

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