POLICY ACADEMY ON INTEGRATING TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE. FINAL REPORT

Where a new road is built eventually affects where homes, commercial centers and industry locate. Similarly, the growth patterns of a community create demand for specific transportation projects. Transportation planning and land use planning are inextricably linked, though the causes and effects are not always easy to ascertain. But while the issues may be linked, the planning processes for each rarely are. The preponderance of transportation decisions are made at the state level while the majority of growth and land use decisions fall to local governments. Integrating land use and transportation planning can save money, reduce construction times, streamline permitting processes, and ultimately foster economic development and a high quality of life. The efforts of states to better integrate land use and transportation planning processes can serve as models for other state transportation and land use leaders wishing to do the same. Six states that participated in a National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) Policy Academy on the topic have proposed and executed methods for integrating their transportation plans with local land use efforts. From their experiences, some general conclusions can be drawn about integration efforts: (1) An institutional framework for integrating growth strategies and land use planning into transportation planning is needed both horizontally (across state departments) and vertically (local to regional to state). (2) Building local capacity is important to integrating land use and transportation planning successfully. All states that participated in the policy academy acknowledged that local land use control makes it difficult to manage the statewide transportation system rationally in the face of increasing population growth and rising rates of land consumption. (3) Most states need information on tools, techniques and strategies that can facilitate improved land use planning. For example, tools are needed to evaluate the effects of different growth strategies such as priority funding areas or greenspace conservation programs, particularly in connection with transportation infrastructure costs. (4) Greater collaboration between Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and state departments of transportation (DOTs) often is needed. This paper examines in-depth two of the six states that participated in the Policy Academy: Tennessee and Utah. For various reasons, to this date these two states have advanced the farthest in achieving the goals set at the Policy Academy. Both states have addressed the needs described in the list above. Interestingly, Tennessee and Utah approached the integration of land use and transportation planning differently. Their distinctive approaches provide a wider range of policy options from which other states can choose.