Congestion as a Cultural Construct

Weinstein, Asha

doi:10.7227/tjth.27.2.9

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Parkways of the 1920s and 1930s refl ected multidisciplinary approaches to facility location, design, and construction (Brown, 2006 ). Within a few decades, however, transportation planning had become "a narrow technical exercise conducted by specially trained engineers and planners…concerned largely with facilitating safe, high-speed motor vehicle travel" (Brown, 2006 , p. 4;Weinstein, 2006 ). Planners and traffi c engineers tracked street layout and capacity as well as vehicle speeds, directions, volumes, and parking and proposed grade separation and standard road widths.…”

Section: Embracing Automobility and Urban Highways In The 1940s And 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metropolitan Transportation Planning: Lessons From the Past, Institutions for the Future

Sciara¹

2017

Journal of the American Planning Association

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Problem, research strategy, and fi ndings: There are more than 400 U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) overseeing multiple transportation projects totaling billions of dollars, yet these crucial organizations and their history and current role are generally unknown or confusing to many planning practitioners and scholars. MPOs face major challenges in developing meaningful long-range regional transportation plans, challenges rooted in their history that planners should understand as they grapple with metropolitan planning efforts. MPOs may approve projects and their funding, but disparate agencies and often competitive local governments control budgets and actually build projects. MPOs, moreover, do not fully represent all regional interests and have no control over the local land use decisions that would support less autocentric communities and human-powered modes. I provide a metareview of the history of regional transportation planning and the MPOs responsible for it, describing U.S. metropolitan transportation planning from the early 20th century. Federal legislation in the 1960s fi rst suggested a regional forum for conversations about metropolitan transportation. Federal legislation in subsequent decades made incremental if incomplete progress toward creating a meaningful regional forum, adapting institutions and practices to increase stakeholder involvement as well as the scope of transport planning, yet MPOs have multiple limitations that planners can address. Takeaway for practice: History suggests that MPOs can be a force for regional change. Planners and policymakers could anchor future reforms to MPOs' existing legal and administrative frameworks. Planners should revisit the membership and voting structures Metropolitan Transportation Planning Lessons From the Past, Institutions for the Future Gian-Claudia Sciara of MPO boards to ensure better stakeholder representation and permit some MPOs to generate and direct transportation funds at the local level.

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Section: Embracing Automobility and Urban Highways In The 1940s And 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metropolitan Transportation Planning: Lessons From the Past, Institutions for the Future

Sciara¹

2017

Journal of the American Planning Association

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“…What changed with the industrial revolution was the clash between the reality of traffic jams and the expectation of speed that grew over time with the advent of streetcars, then cars, then freeways. As Asha Agrawal (then Weinstein) painstakingly documented in her dissertation work, Bostonians complained about and demanded relief from congestion in the 1890s, when streetcars were the primary traffic culprit on downtown streets, and they continued to complain in the 1920s after a subway system had cleared the streets of streetcars but when automobiles were increasingly taking their place: "virtually no one took the position that congestion was not problematic" or argued that it did not merit public intervention, even if they did not agree on why congestion was such a problem (Weinstein, 2006).…”

Section: Roundabouts Of a Figurative Kindmentioning

confidence: 99%