Smart Growth and Transportation
- Smart Growth Strategies for Transportation Electrification: Learn how communities can guide investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and benefit from transportation electrification.
- U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization: Learn about a landmark strategy for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector by 2050.
Background
Transportation is a key element of smart growth and can be leveraged to increase access to opportunity, reduce pollution, improve community health outcomes and help the nation reach its climate goals.
Transportation investments have important consequences for the environment and our ability to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. Where we build roads and other transportation infrastructure affects air and water quality and the preservation of open space.
Integrated transportation and land use planning can create multi-modal opportunities and in turn, give people more choices for getting around their town and their region. When homes, offices, stores and civic buildings are near transit stations and close to each other, it is more convenient to walk, bicycle or take transit. This expanded menu of transportation choices makes it easier to incorporate physical activity into daily routines and reduce their household's transportation budget. It also gives more freedom and mobility to low-income individuals, senior citizens, disabled persons and others who cannot or choose not to drive or own a car.
Providing a range of transportation choices and the walkable neighborhoods that support them can help improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to EPA's Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, in 2022, transportation activities accounted for the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions of any economic sector. Developing compactly and investing in public transit and other transportation options make it easier for people to drive less, lowering greenhouse gas emissions. These approaches can also help reduce carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and other pollutants emitted by motor vehicles.
Technical Assistance
EPA offers technical assistance to help communities plan for enhanced access to mobility services and more walkable, healthy communities.
- Rethinking Highways for Healthy Communities
- Community-Based Transportation Electrification
- Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities
Related Topics
Transit-Oriented Development
Transit-oriented development involves compact development around a transit station or within easy walking distance (e.g. a half-mile) that features a mix of land uses such as housing, offices, shops, restaurants, and entertainment.
TOD has significant benefits to communities.
- Walkable communities: Having transportation, housing, employment and entertainment options within close proximity can help create a walkable community for people of all ages and abilities.
- Economic benefits: Enabling workers of all income levels to reach job centers without long, expensive commutes helps promote regional economic prosperity [1]. TOD helps to lower household transportation costs and boost public transit ridership.
- Housing opportunities: When paired with lower mandated parking ratios and higher-density zoning, TOD may reduce the costs of housing development. This helps facilitate the development of a range of housing options that are more affordable.
Find additional information and resources related to transit-oriented development.
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- Transit-Oriented Development, Federal Transit Administration: Find funding resources, policies and additional information on TOD.
- FTA also administers the Pilot Program for Transit-Oriented Development Planning, which provides funding to communities to integrate land use and transportation planning with a new fixed guideway or core capacity transit capital investment.
- How Transit-Oriented Development Can Promote Equitable, Healthy Communities, Urban Institute: Study that analyzed existing literature on the implications of TOD on residents' health and well-being.
Sustainable Transportation Planning
Transportation planning will get the best results for communities when part of a comprehensive approach that includes land use and environmental planning at the local and regional levels.
Transportation planning and design choices have a direct influence on development patterns, choices of travel mode, costs of infrastructure, potential for redevelopment, the health of natural resources and other community concerns.
Transportation and land use planners can:
- Examine the effects of transportation projects on future growth, development and long-range economic goals.
- Assess each project's effects on air and water quality and other environmental resources.
- Determine whether transportation and other infrastructure can be built on a timetable consistent with development or redevelopment projects.
Planners can use tools like regional transportation models, land use scenario models, local-scale transportation planning tools and performance measurement to effectively link transportation investments with preferred development patterns.
Find additional information and resources related to sustainable transportation planning.
- Smart Location Mapping, US EPA: Mapping tools and data products to measure the built environment and transit accessibility of neighborhoods across metropolitan regions in the US. Tools include the Smart Location Database (2021), National Walkability Index and the Smart Location Calculator (2021).
- Mixed-Use Trip Generation Model, US EPA: Spreadsheet tool that makes it easy to estimate trips generated by a new mixed-use development to more fairly assess these projects in development review processes.
- Guide to Sustainable Transportation Performance Measures, US EPA: Can help transportation agencies incorporate environmental, economic, and social sustainability into decision-making through the use of performance measures.
- Measuring the Air Quality and Transportation Impacts of Infill Development, US EPA: Illustrates how regions can calculate the transportation and air quality benefits of infill, based on standard transportation forecasting models used by metropolitan planning organizations across the country. The results suggest that strong support for infill development can be one of the most effective transportation and emission reduction investments regions can pursue.
- Tool Kit for Integrating Land Use and Transportation Decision-Making, Federal Highway Administration: A compilation of methods, strategies, and procedures for integrating land use and transportation planning, decision-making, and project implementation.
Smart and Sustainable Street Design
Historically, transportation planners have overlooked the important role of streets in shaping neighborhoods. For decades, decisions about street size and design in many communities have focused on getting as many cars as possible through the streets as quickly as possible.
Street design determines whether an area will be safe and inviting for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users, which affects the viability of certain types of retail, influences land values and tax receipts and shapes overall economic strength and resilience.
Street design also has important environmental impacts. It can determine the viability of less-polluting modes of transportation, affecting air quality and climate change. Street design also influences the volume and water quality of stormwater runoff, as well as the magnitude of the heat island effect.
Through planning and design approaches such complete street and context sensitive solutions, communities can create attractive streets that also improve mobility and safety by employing policies and design approaches. Complete streets are streets that enable the safe use and access for all users. Those include people of all ages and abilities, regardless of whether they are travelling as drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists or public transportation riders. Complete street approaches and designs vary based on the community context, but may feature a wide range of elements, such as sidewalks, bicycle lanes, public transit stops, crossing opportunities, curb extensions, landscaping and/or street trees. Context sensitive solutions are a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach in providing a transportation facility that fits its setting and preserves scenic, community and environmental resources while maintaining safety and mobility.
Find additional information and resources related to street design.
- Essential Smart Growth Fixes for Communities: Offers strategies to help local governments amend their codes and ordinances to promote more sustainable communities. It includes chapters on street design, walkability and parking policies that support lively, mixed-use neighborhoods.
- Complete Streets, Federal Highway Administration: Overview of complete streets, as well as list of resources and tools, including template design standards.
- Complete Streets, Institute of Transportation Engineers: Includes links to resources on active transportation and context-sensitive design.
- NACTO Design Guides and Design Guidance, National Association of Transportation Officials: Library of street design guides and guidance documents on topics such as accessibility, urban bikeways, transit, stormwater, etc.
- Emergency Response and Narrow Streets, CivicWell: Describes strategies for traffic calming and street design that makes streets safe for emergency responders and residents.
- Building a Better State DOT, Smart Growth America and the Governors' Institute on Community Design: Provides recommendations that state transportation officials can use as they position their agencies for success and seek innovative and flexible ways to meet users' needs.
- Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach, Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Congress for the New Urbanism (behind paywall): Provides guidance on applying context-sensitive solutions in communities that support compact development, mixed land uses, walking, and bicycling. This resource was developed with support from EPA.
- Sustainability and Urban Design Standards, the American Public Transportation Association: Library of publications, guides and best practices for sustainable urban design and issues associated with design, such as complete streets, livability, partnerships and more.
Parking and Curbside Management
Parking requirements are a land use regulation that determine the amount of parking that developers must provide when building housing, commercial buildings, parks or any other type of development. These can be an obstacle to compact development because parking requirements in many conventional zoning codes often call for off-street parking based on generic expectations of use, such as the number of bedrooms in an apartment complex or square feet in an office building, rather than the actual number of spaces needed for individual sites' needs and context. This often results in excess parking being built and provided on the development site.
With their high costs and space requirements, conventional parking regulations can deter compact, mixed-use development and redevelopment in older neighborhoods. On average, surface parking spaces cost $5,000 per space to build, and underground parking spaces cost $35,000 per space [2]. These parking development costs can create major financing challenges and barriers to building new housing, especially in urban areas, where developable land is in high demand.
In addition, large expanses of surface parking and stand-alone parking structures can discourage walking, make communities feel less safe and make driving the only viable transportation between destinations. Better-managed parking can support lively, economically strong, mixed-use districts; encourage walking and transit use; and reduce the costs of redevelopment and infill projects.
Across the country, communities have experienced a rapid increase in e-commerce and other delivery services. While this increased flow of goods and services has many benefits, it has traffic and parking implications. As communities experience increases in food and retail deliveries and mobile technology-based for-hire vehicle and taxi services, it is becoming increasingly important for cities and towns to consider how to manage the demand for curbside space. Curbside management refers to the practice of balancing the needs for all roadway users at the curb. This approach seeks to optimize and manage curb space to maximize mobility, safety and access for the wide variety of curb demands [3].
Find additional information and resources on parking and curbside management.
- Parking Spaces / Community Places: Finding the Balance Through Smart Growth Solutions, US EPA: Highlights proven approaches that balance parking with broader community goals. Communities have found that combinations of parking pricing, shared parking, demand management and other techniques have helped them create vibrant places while protecting environmental quality.
- Parking and Curbside Management Toolkit, Regional Plan Association: Strategies and best practices for more efficient parking and curb management, with a focus on Business Improvement Districts.
- Parking and the City, Donald Shoup: Detailed analysis from a national expert on the transportation and land use impacts of free parking. This book includes updated data and information on parking reforms recommended in his previous book, The High Cost of Free Parking. Chapter 1 is available for free online (PDF).
- Parking Management Strategies for More Efficient Use of Parking Resources, Victoria Transportation Policy Institute: Describes various management strategies that result in more efficient use of parking resources, including sharing, regulating and pricing of parking facilities, more accurate requirements, use of off-site parking facilities, improved user information and incentives to use alternative modes.
- Curb Appeal: Curbside Management Strategies for Improving Transit Reliability, National Association of City Transportation Officials: White paper that provides examples of how cities have successfully changed curb use to support transit and manage other roadway users.
[1] Infrastructure Financing Options for Transit-Oriented Development, 2013. US Environmental Protection Agency.
[2] People over Parking, 2018. American Planning Association.
[3] Curbside Management: What is Curbside Management? 2024. Institute of Transportation Engineers.