Governance and Opportunity in Metropolitan America (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Regionalism in Transportation and Air Quality: History, Interpretation, and Insights for Regional Governance
Regionalism in Transportation and Air Quality: History, Interpretation, and Insights for Regional Governance
Pages 296-323
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From page 296... ...
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF REGIONALISM IN TRANSPORTATION PLANNING Transportation policy has been treated as a regional issue for so long that transportation planners and managers would be surprised by proposals to consider transportation in other ways. When the exuberant population and economic growth of the decade immediately following World War I was coupled with even more rapid growth in automobile ownership and use, an extremely progressive federal government took the lead by recognizing that traffic congestion knew few political boundaries.
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From page 297... ...
They dealt primarily with the construction of facilities and not so deeply with fiscal or funding strategies, environmental impacts, growth control, or system management, all issues that we today consider critical dimensions in regional transportation planning. The capital investments proposed in many regional plans of the 1920s were mostly highways conventional streets and boulevards that were often broader than and conceived of more systematically as networks and hierarchies of facilities having far greater capacities than street systems of earlier periods in the American metropolis.
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From page 298... ...
Funds for state highways at the regional level were scarce because of the competition from intercity highways needed primarily in rural areas in an era when the balance of power in state legislatures was still in the hands of rural representatives. POSTWAR HIGHWAY PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION At the end of World War II, America again turned to regional transportation planning and started to address the enormous backlog of unmet highway needs dating back to the 1920s.
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From page 299... ...
has interpreted the significant role played by funding decisions in determining the course of history of regional transportation plans. He shows that city and county planners in the period just before World War II had developed a highway plan for the Los Angeles metropolitan area that was surprisingly different from the freeway network eventually constructed.
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From page 300... ...
We may interpret the Los Angeles freeway system as a regional system, but it is more correct to see it as a regional manifestation of fiscal and political power brought to bear on the region from the state and national capitals. THE RISE OF PUBLIC TRANSIT The postwar regional transportation plans in almost all instances emphasized highway construction.
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From page 301... ...
In contrast, the transit planning process, carried out largely by planners in the employ of cities and of regional councils of government, was overseen by elected representatives of the many cities in each metropolitan area and characterized by a much more open political process of negotiation and bargaining. MERGING HIGHWAY AND TRANSIT POLICY MAKING Despite their separate roots and rather different histories, both highway and transit planning were being done at the regional level, and over time the federal government as a condition for continued funding required that the two regional transportation planning processes be merged into one.
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From page 302... ...
Although the transit planning process is technically complex and data intensive, as was the highway planning process, it is today typically conducted by a metropolitan planning organization that is a council of governments or a representative board of elected representatives of different governments within the metropolitan area. In Los Angeles, for example, the Los Angeles Regional Transportation Study (LARTS)
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From page 303... ...
The most successful regional transportation agencies were those that became adept at mixing and matching federal and state categorical funds in order to arrive at a package that enabled them to make reasonable progress toward implementing programs for which there was a high level of regional consensus. The regional agencies responsible for transportation planning (known widely as the metropolitan planning organizations, or MPOs)
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From page 304... ...
in 1991 marked a significant change in the ways in which transportation planning and finance are accomplished. The number of categorical programs was reduced significantly, and at the regional level the designated metropolitan planning organization has for the first time the authority to shift funds from one category to another in such a way that funds may actually be used across several modes.
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From page 305... ...
It is less clear that construction or the daily management of physical facilities is best addressed at the regional level, since it is possible that a regional system can function smoothly even if some of these functions are carried out by municipalities and counties. One of the great strengths of transportation planning is that major capital investment programs are and have for some time been planned at the regional level.
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From page 306... ...
It is important to recognize that, in the realm of transportation and most other public systems, there is typically a regional agency responsible for long-range planning and for the distribution of federal and state funds, but no regionwide source of revenue and no regional operating authority. Although planning and programming and the allocation of pass-through funds from the state and national governments may take place at the regional level, it is in the nature of regional
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From page 307... ...
Equity In the context of political debates, the term "equity" can have many meanings. In fact, explicit tensions between competing concepts of equity have been frequently identified in regional transportation planning.
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From page 308... ...
They claimed that at the very same time inner-city service was being reduced and fares increased, commitments were being fulfilled to build new rail lines that connected suburban and predominantly white commuters to downtown job locations. They also claimed that the vast majority of transit security costs were being devoted to policing suburban transit services despite higher crime rates on inner-city bus routes.
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From page 309... ...
Regional bodies make advisory pronouncements about the importance of achieving a jobs/housing balance and transit-oriented development, but local governments ignore these pronouncements to make land use decisions that increase local revenues from property taxes in relation to the costs of local service provision. As long as transportation plans and programs at the regional level remain reactive to strictly local land use decision making, transportation investments will be less effective at directing and determining regional form than could otherwise be the case.
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From page 310... ...
HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF REGIONAL AIR QUALITY AGENCIES As with many aspects of air pollution control, California led the nation in controlling air pollution at the county and regional levels. The California state legislature passed the California Air Pollution Control District Act of 1947, authorizing counties to regulate air pollution, largely in response to the inability of Los Angeles County to control pollution sources in incorporated areas (Bollens, 1957~.
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From page 311... ...
WHY WERE REGIONAL AIR POLLUTION AGENCIES FORMED? J The idea of controlling air pollution on a regional level evolved in the 1950s, as the focus of air pollution control shifted from controlling smoke to other pollutants, including ozone or "smog." Until about 1960, cities operated the vast majority of air pollution control programs.
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From page 312... ...
On a statewide level, a majority of delegates at a California State Chamber of Commerce conference on air pollution voted for regional air districts. The League of California Cities adopted a policy in 1955 that recommended mandatory legislation creating multicounty or regional air pollution control districts with all the necessary legal authority to control air pollution (Joint Subcommittee on Air Pollution, 1955~.
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From page 313... ...
The 1970 and 1977 federal Clean Air Act Amendments led to increased activity on the part of the regional agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, prior to 1970, the Bay Area APCD had adopted only 3 regulations in its first 15 years of existence and had not engaged in significant planning activities.
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From page 314... ...
Legislation specific to the BAAQMD and the SCAQMD required the area's metropolitan planning organizations, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Southern California Association of Governments, respectively, to take part in developing the transportation and indirect control measures. Air districts in California witnessed numerous challenges to their authority in the 1990s.
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From page 315... ...
EVALUATING REGIONALISM IN AIR QUALITY PLANNING Successes Regional air districts in California are generally viewed as a success in terms of reducing air pollutant emissions and improving air quality. Air quality has improved in all regions despite significant growth in population and vehicle use.
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From page 316... ...
Area interests, including the regulated community, would usually prefer to comply with a regulation developed at the regional level than to deal with state or federal agencies. Other federal requirements and provisions increase the likelihood of strong regional air pollution control programs.
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From page 317... ...
However, air districts are not responsible for these types of facilities that are typically under the jurisdiction of state and regional transportation agencies, cities, and counties. This is even more germane to land use measures that appear in some air quality plans, such as the jobs-housing balance and increased density around rail transit stations.
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From page 318... ...
One question that faces regional air quality agencies is their role in reaching attainment of state and federal standards. If the largest sources of pollution remaining, namely cars, trucks, and other mobile sources, cannot be controlled at the local and the regional levels through reducing their use, i.e., if technological changes are the only real solution, will air districts play as large a role in adopting new strategies to clean up the air as they have in the past?
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From page 319... ...
In this arena the issue is a product of the push toward market-based pollution control measures and the location of noxious sources in low-income areas. Furthermore, it is unclear whether a regional agency will be able to address the issue any better than a county or a city.
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From page 320... ...
Requirements of the Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments and those in a series of Surface Transportation Acts have more directly led to the regionalism that we have discussed in this paper. One of the key differences in regional planning between transportation and air quality is the existence of clearer goals in air quality planning, namely the ambient air quality standards established at the federal level and in California.
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From page 321... ...
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that a higher level of distributional equity has been achieved as a result of the existence of regional transportation authorities. Neither transportation nor air quality agencies at the regional level have direct taxing or fund-raising authority, and neither typically has the equitable redistribution of funds as an explicit responsibility within the terms of its charter.
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From page 322... ...
In Joint Subcommittee on Air Pollution, Air Pollution Control in the San Francisco Bay Area. Assembly Interim Committee Reports 1953-1955 13(4)
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From page 323... ...
Lieber, Harvey 1968 Controlling metropolitan pollution through regional airsheds: Administrative requirements and political problems. Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 18(2)
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