Land use -- the missing piece?
This just in… The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) will conduct a “Super NoVa” study of commuting patterns to help determine transit and transportation demand management (TDM) enhancements for Northern Virginia. The study will disregard jurisdictional boundaries, and it will extend beyond the traditional definition of “Northern Virginia” to encompass the entire commuting shed of the Washington area, including points as far west as the Shenandoah Valley and as far south as Culpeper and Caroline counties.
The study will evaluate existing and future population and employment centers to identify potential transit and TDM improvements that will increase mobility and provide greater transportation choice in the northern part of Virginia, states a press release from the governor’s office. The study will produce concrete recommendations with a strategic regional focus.
“Every locality in Northern Virginia faces transportation challenges and most have developed jurisdictionally specific projects to address those challenges,” said Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton. “We must broaden our focus and find the most cost-effective transit and TDM services that have the biggest impact on a region-wide basis. The Super NOVA study will help us do that.”
Here’s what’s good about the study. First, it is taking a labor-market view instead of jurisdictional, planning-district or even metropolitan-area view. That means the findings will better reflect economic reality. Second, the Department of Transportation is expanding its focus beyond building roads, it’s main preoccupation until now, to include not only transit but transportation demand management. Both are important steps forward.
Here’s what’s lacking: Judging from the press release, the study will not make the land-use connection. Talking about transportation without understanding its interplay with human settlement patterns is like describing how to bake a cake with flour, sugar and eggs… with no reference how to mix them with milk and water. As described, the study will take existing human settlement patterns as a given and endeavor to fashion transportation policies to serve them. But human settlement patterns are dysfunctional and unsustainable throughout much of the Washington metropolitan area, especially in peripheral counties, and probably cannot be served economically with the resources Virginia has available.
But it’s too early to judge the study. If it concludes that much of the Northern Virginia commuting shed is impossible to serve with mass transit in the absence of dramatic changes in human settlement patterns, then it could prove to be well worth the effort. Here’s hoping that the authors take an extra-wide view of their task.
— JAB
