Four Stafford County planning commissioners took a trip to the Kentlands development in Gaithersburg, Md., last month to inspect what New Urbanism planning concepts look like in practice, and Kafia Hosh with the Free Lance-Star went along with them to describe what they observed. “We see all of these plans, and we read all of the theories,” said commission member Steve Pitzel. “We really just wanted to go see what these things look like after they’ve been developed.”
Kentlands is the most established New Urbanism development in the Mid-Atlantic; enough time has passed since construction for the paint to start peeling and the asphalt to crack. By and large, the project delivered the goods — it has a mix of uses, pedestrian-friendly streets, service alleys in the back of houses, and fairly small lot sizes. On the other hand, Kentlands is located several miles from a Metro stop and residents still rely on automobiles for much of their travel.
What’s not clear from the story — probably because no one has compiled the information — are two critical datapoints: (1) Even though Kentlands residents still need their automobiles to function in suburban Maryland, do they drive fewer, shorter trips, as predicted by New Urbanism theory, thus reducing the number of Vehicle Miles Driven on state roads? And (2) Is the compact, moderate-density development more economical to serve with other public services?
Smart Growthers and Traditional Growthers can argue until they’re blue in the face about which development patterns are more transportation efficient, but there is not enough hard data to settle the issue definitively. Planning commissioners can visit Kentlands and get a better “feel” for New Urbanism, but such visits provide only anecdotal impressions, not factual proof, that one pattern of development costs less to serve and maintain than others.
The debate is not likely to advance very far in Virginia without more conclusive data. That’s why it’s high time to start gathering solid information. The task is easily and relatively inexpensively accomplished.
Step one: When automobile owners take their cars to a garage for state inspections, the inspectors take the odometer readings and report them to the Department of Motor Vehicles. That way, the state gains an accurate count of Vehicle Miles Driven every year. (If this duplicates some process already in effect, and we already have precise data, then so much the better.)
Step two: Break down the entire state by census tracts. Characterize each census tract by key variables — zoning, density, housing type, prevalence of retail, commercial and other land uses, access to Metro, bus or other mass transit, types of streets and roads, etc.
Step Three: Hand the data to scholars at Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth of Virginia, the University of Virginia, or wherever, to start crunching numbers and establishing relationships between Vehicle Miles Driven and different human settlement patterns. Let the professors ascertain which patterns are the most transportation efficient, and let their studies inform public policy at the state and local level.
Right now, Virginia is largely flying blind on land use. People make all kinds of claims and there is no definitive way to sort through them. For a couple million dollars per year to administer a program like this, we could potentially save ourselves billions in transportation expenditures. The only people who could possibly oppose this is those who make their living bamboozling the public.