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:
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.