Smart Growth Resources

Parking
Jeff Tumlin of Nelson-Nygaard delivered a powerful presentation on the potential to reduce GHGs through managing parking to the Joint Policy Committee in July of 2009. His report to the Regional Agencies presented strategies for implementing parking reform that could significantly reduce the region’s GHG emissions.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area held a conference on parking reform, and made a range of resources available, including a handbook/toolbox on reforming parking policies to support Smart Growth. The toolbox contains a model to assist in the analysis of site-specific parking demand.


Transit-Oriented Development
New Places, New Choices: Transit-Oriented Development in the San Francisco Bay Area. This report includes the results of a travel survey of residents of TOD, with the remarkable finding that they drive 1/5 of the miles that suburban residents do.

The Sierra Club has posted excellent resources on density and Smart Growth in the
Sprawl section of their website.

The Location-Efficient Mortgage is a program that enables homebuyers to purchase a more expensive home than they would otherwise qualify for, if it is in a transit-accessible neighborhood. Living in urban areas lowers the cost of transportation, because urban dwellers drive less. Here’s a map of the San Francisco Bay Area, showing how much households drive a year, based on their residence location:

lem--sf-vmt-


Transportation Demand Management
The
Victoria Transport Policy Institute offers a progressive and comprehensive approach to transportation, based on full accounting for costs and benefits. VTPI is the leading source of information on TDM and VMT reduction. VTPI's Executive Director, Todd Litman, has written Parking Management Best Practices, a very helpful guide to the efficient use of land, and to integrating parking into a world of transit-oriented development. A short version of the book is available online.


Induced Demand and GHG Emissions
The Sightline Institute has produced an important study on the expected long-term increase in GHG emissions that will result from highway widening.