In the final part of this series on urban design, Perkins+Will principal David Green discusses how the region can maximize its opportunities to improve transportation and the health, safety and welfare of its citizens if it passes T-SPLOST. 

We are voting on the transportation referendum on July 31.

It is almost certain that the result of the vote will have far less impact than is projected by either side of the debate. If it fails, we will continue to muddle through, as we always have, failing to fulfill much of our potential. If it passes we will surely make a mess of it, as we tend to do: the results will be less beneficial than promised, and we will most likely not learn much from our mistakes.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. While it is true that there is little opportunity in the failure of the referendum, there is much opportunity if it passes: if we can apply some key accountability measures over the next ten years. Some will argue that these measures are not allowed due to restrictions embedded in the referendum, but this is simply not true. In fact, the law requires that each of the recommendations below is included in the process.

This view from 1910 shows how visionaries anticipated Atlanta would look 100 years later, in 2010. They believed citizens would rely on mass transit, but were a bit off in their visions of dirigibles and boats as modes of transportation.

1. Clearly articulate measurable goals. The referendum as a whole, and each individual project should be required to have specific outcomes as targeted goals. The three categories are health, safety and welfare. As such each project should reduce unhealthy and unsafe conditions, as well as promote economic vitality. For example each project should reduce asthma and airborne particulates, increase pedestrian activity, and reduce vehicle-related injuries and deaths. In addition projects should have a clear budget that aligns with its stated goals. There are a number of measureable goals that could, and should, be added to the list above, and with technical tracking capabilities today this is a relatively simple process.

2. Set criteria for returns on our investment. Each project should have a measurable return on the investment, and each should be designed and funded relative to this return. Ultimately we want to utilize our resources (spend our money) in ways that are going to maximize the benefit to the greatest number people.

A street view of downtown Atlanta in the 1940s. The first streetcars in Atlanta, pulled by horses, started operation in 1871. The first electric line started in 1889 and ended in 1949, when trolleybuses took over.

3. Track project performance. Each project should be tracked to ensure that it is performing in the manner that was originally projected. The value in this process is that is allows us to understand what works and what doesn’t work. Without tracking performance, decisions will continue to be made based on faulty modeling and educated guesses. It also requires that we are truthful about the efficacy of projects, regardless of our position on various modes of transportation. It is the only way to provide true accountability across the board.

4. Modify projects based on items 1 – 3. Both current and future projects should be modified to respond to project tracking. If we see things aren’t working as planned, projects underway or completed should be modified (utilizing the methods above), and future projects should be redesigned or cancelled, as appropriate. This will require modifications to our current capital planning process, but it is the right thing to do.

It’s a little known fact that MARTA proposed a transit station at City Hall East in 1961. Now, 50 years later, we may finally see this vision realized.

This isn’t all that different from the way we run our own 401(k)’s. We set a goal for retirement, we have a method for measuring returns, we track performance, and we modify our investments when they aren’t meeting our goals. When we have less money, we make individual sacrifices so that we can keep contributing. There is no reason these principles should not be true for us as collective citizens, as they are for us individually.

On November 22, 1926, the Supreme Court told us to go forth and plan, but as we did, to make sure that every decision made benefitted the health, safety and welfare of the general public. This is pretty good advice, and we would be well served by following it. Finally.

In part six of this series on urban design, Perkins+Will principal David Green discusses the two questions our region needs to ask itself as we deal with transportation issues and the upcoming referendum and the two conditions that have to change.

In this series we have discussed how, for the past 100 years or so, we have been struggling with issues of transportation; planning for the future, funding projects and trying to reduce congestion. We looked at the original context of the issues, from the constitutional and legal justifications to the initial strategies for implementation. And we reflected on what went wrong; why we are still grappling with these issues and, by most accounts, still unsuccessful. As a result, we should ask ourselves two simple questions: should we change this, and if so, how?

If the answer to the first question is yes, then the first thing we should to do is understand what we really want out of this process, how we want to live our daily lives. If we want to spend more time in our cars, get fatter and waste money, then the answer is simple: we just keep doing what we have been doing. We already know it works.

But if we want to spend less time driving, get healthier, and save money, then we have to do something else, reconsider the type of city we want to live in (and remember the Supreme Court said this is what we should do – keep people healthy, safe and prosperous). In order to do this successfully there are two broad conditions that have to change.

1. We have to work regionally. Unfortunately, the current situation in Georgia makes this very difficult. The trend is to further balkanize jurisdictions within each region, with many new small cities and towns. While this may seem like a good way to solve very local problems, it is moving us further from finding long-range solutions and fulfilling our constitutional obligations.

The issues and systems that bind us together are fundamentally regional (water, transportation, education, economic growth) yet we continue to try to find solutions in smaller jurisdictions. However, we have a system in the state that addresses this. It is a series of regional commissions that are charged with coordinating planning efforts throughout the state on a regional basis. The difficulty, however, is that they have almost no authority. In order to work regionally, we must give these commissions the authority to put in place planning criteria for each of the regions.

The state is currently reviewing and revising the operational structure of the regional commissions, and giving them more flexibility in how they operate within each region and giving local jurisdictions in each region more say in the process. This is a good thing, and it gives the system the flexibility it needs. Clearly, many of the issues facing the southwest region of the state are very different than the challenges the Atlanta region is facing. If this is to work, however, the regional commissions should be empowered to plan.

2. We should require testing and evaluation of the proposed transportation projects. The Supreme Court, in 1926, directed us to ensure that the methods we use to plan cities and regions are such that the resulting projects make us healthy, safe and prosperous. Yet the methods we currently use have either been proved to do just the opposite, or their affects on the population remain unknown.

For example, we know that the highway-arterial-collector system of roads creates an unhealthy, unproductive, unsafe environment, yet we continue to pay for and build them, based on ineffective modeling systems that were never scientifically constructed.

If, however, we find that walking creates healthy, safe and productive environments, and we want this, then we can look to recent research that shows people are significantly more likely to walk if the conditions make it comfortable to do so. And further, that the single most significant factor in measuring this is block size; smaller blocks provide an environment in which people are more likely to walk. But we have almost nothing in our current regulations that addresses this issue.

As a further example, it is now becoming clear that the cul-de-sac to highway pattern of development actually leads to a significant increase in pedestrian and vehicular deaths and injuries. The very model that was put in place to make our lives healthier, safer and more economically productive is doing just the opposite. Again, our constitutional obligation is to rectify this situation, and to do this we should provide a system in which projects are analyzed and tested to ensure appropriate results and minimize unintended consequences.

Imagine putting untested drugs on the market and waiting to see what kills us and what makes us better. This is essentially what we are doing with much of our planning efforts, with the same consequences, except in this case, even when we see the drugs are killing us, we don’t take them off the shelves; we order more.

We should be working regionally, and we should be testing projects to ensure they are doing what we want them to do.

Next week we will discuss very specific solutions and how they can be facilitated by the passage and implementation of the transportation referendum.