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The Blueprint planning effort is spurred by forecasts of future travel demand and informed
by alternative planning scenarios. Below are illustrations of each, one showing the likely
future, and the other showing a theoretically possible variation.
Key Travel
Indicators
The forces responsible for the sense of urgency that underlies the Blueprint are depicted
in this bar chart. While population and the resulting demand for travel services (as
measured by daily automobile and transit trips, and overall vehicle miles traveled) are
projected to increase by healthy amounts, the capacity of the region's already heavily
utilized transit and roadway networks will be augmented only modestly. Without investments
over and above those already on the books over the next 20 years, there is little hope of
reversing the patterns of increasing congestion around the region.
*Roadways consist of freeways and expressways (projected to increase from 5,373 to 5,892
lane miles in 2020, a 10 percent increase) and major arterials (projected to increase from
13,138 to 13,319 lane miles, a 1 percent increase).
Sources: Association of Bay Area Governments; MTC forecasts
Travel Impacts of Land-Use
Changes and Parking Fees
What would the transportation future look like if more growth could be directed to
currently built-up areas? How would the imposition of workplace parking charges affect
traffic congestion and transit use? To assess the possible impacts of land-use change and
transportation pricing schemes--two often-advocated policy measures for dealing with
transportation demand pressures--MTC planners made two "heroic assumptions"* and ran them
through a computer model to assess their effects on existing forecasts for the year 2020.
The results showed the two would have mirror-image impacts with respect to two key
indicators. Parking fees would appreciably reduce vehicle hours of delay (by encouraging
people to carpool or switch to nonmotorized forms of travel), while denser land-use
patterns would lead to increased transit use (due to greater numbers of people living and
working in close proximity to transit routes). Of course, the computer models render no
judgment on the political plausibility of either course, but the results could help inform
the policy debate over the issues.
-- Joe Curley
*The pricing alternative assumed the imposition of a $2.60 per car workplace parking fee
(in addition to any fees or charges currently paid by workers, where applicable). The
land-use alternative assumed all population growth projected to occur in the region by 2020
would be spread proportionally among the nine Bay Area counties according to current
relative shares.
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