Land Planning Program

creating resources and tools and improving communication across the region

Multi-Modal Transit

What is Multi-Modal Transit?

Multi-modal transits it the way of the future: Using new and better ways for you to reach your destination. In this Action Item we will evaluate what the different methods for transportation are and how each of them can be beneficial to you as an individual, your community and the environment.

What are the Sustainability Benefits?

1. Protects the quality of your physical environment.
2. Improves our health through the use of multi-modal transit systems that allows for and encourages fitness and exercise.
3. Creates new opportunities for residents of local and regional areas to meet one another, creating a  greater quality of life for those in the Sandhills Area.

Potential Strategies for Implementation

• Carpool
• Bike/Walk
• Ride Share Service
• Mass Transit
• Development Design

Carpooling

There is another, more tragic cost related to automotive use; degradation of our environment. Every day, millions of vehicles pump pollutants into our atmosphere. Some of these pollutants fall to earth, fouling streams and contaminating crops. Others rise into the stratosphere, damaging the ozone layer and causing global climate warming-the "green-house effect". Still more of these pollutants cling close to earth, inhaled with every breath we take. Air pollution is a proven cause in several lung ailments, from asthma to emphysema. ridesharing or carpooling reduces the impact of automobiles on our roadways and our environment very simply -  by traveling in groups rather than alone, ridesharing decrease the number of vehicles on our roads.

Action Steps: Adults or Children

1. Contact your local government office or community center to ask about existing programs?
2. If you don't learn of any existing carpool programs contact your friends, neighbors and co-workers to ask them to help you start one.
3. Make a plan for a start day for your carpool and begin to reap the rewards.
4. Set personal goals for carpooling: i.e." To use the carpool once every week to and from work."

Bike or Walk

There are plenty of great reasons to walk and bike to school - less traffic, safer streets, cleaner air - but one of the best is that you will be healthier. With obesity rates skyrocketing and only one-quarter of Americans getting the Surgeon General's recommended daily dose of exercise (just 30 minutes), it's an ideal time to encourage people to get to be sociable. Nearly nine out of ten parents who walk their children to school see is as an ideal way to meet new people, according to a survey in the UK. Many said that the school entrance was a better place to meet new people than pubs, clubs, evening classes or the supermarket.

Action Steps: Families, Parents, and Children

1. Map a route from your start to your destination
2. Talk to your friends and neighbors and invite them to join you.
3. Plan a day to start your new commute.
4. Set a goal: i.e. "To walk/bike twice every month to and from work or school."

Local Travel: Ride Share

When utilized to any reasonable fraction of their capacity, mass transit vehicles carry a far higher passenger load per unit of weight and volume than do private vehicles. THey also offer fuel savings, not only because of the relative reduction in weight transported, but also because they are large enough to carry more efficient engines. Further, if emphasis is given to mass transit in the planning of future ground transportation systems, smaller rights of way will be possible, lessening the amount of landscape that must be paved over for highways and roads. Ultimately, if all transport were public (in the sense of shared), more people per vehicle would mean fewer vehicles on the roads, thus reducing and probably even eliminating traffic jams.

Action Steps: Government, Politicians, Families

1. Investigate current local programs in your area.
2. If you can't find any programs, approach your local politicians (alderman, commissioners, etc.) about gathering some information to start a program.
3. Remember to start small. Talk to organizations such as churches or the library about vehicles. Plan short trips to occur regularly to and from common locations (i.e. the library to grocery store, school to library, local park to town hall, etc.)
4. Set a goal: "To plan at least one ride share service to occur at least once a month for 3 months."

Long Distance Travel: Mass Transit

Mass transit refers to municipal or regional public shard transportation, such as buses, streetcars, and ferries, open to all on a non reserved basis. An important form of mass transit is rapid transits, such as subways and surface light rail systems, designed for commuting between urban and suburban centers. Mass transit can be divided into fixed route systems (often involving rails), such as streetcars and subway trains, and non fixed route transit (along surface streets or water), such as buses and ferries. Mass transit systems offer considerable savings in labor, materials, and energy over private transit systems. Since far fewer operators ar required per passenger transported, they can be better trained and more strictly licensed and supervised.

Action Steps: Adults and Families

1. Research regional and national mass transit programs available to those in your area.
2. Select an option that works well for you and your situation.
3. Purchase tickets and enjoy the benefits of relaxing and inexpensive travel!
4. Set a goal: "Utilize a form of mass transit for my next visit to grandma's house."

Growth: Development Design

Quality developments have a high proportion of interconnected streets, sidewalks and paths. Streets and rights of ways are shared between vehicles (moving and parked), bicycles and pedestrians. The dense network of streets functions in an interdependent manner, providing continuous routes that enhance non-vehicular travel. In pedestrian friendly developments, most streets are designed to minimize through traffic by the design of the street and the location of land uses. Streets are designed to only be as wide as needed to accommodate the usual vehicular mix for that street while providing adequate access for moving vans, garbage trucks, fire engines and school buses.

Action Steps: Government and Politicians

1. Review current development design guidelines and indicate areas of weakness in terms of encouraging multi-modal transit.
2. Research other communities or sample ordinances for ways to improve your community's regulations.
3. Draft new or revised language for the development design guidelines that will create more pedestrian and mass transit friendly developments.
4. Set a goal: "To complete one amendment that will improve sidewalk conditions in new developments."

Sources of Assistance and Ideas:

American Planning Association / Transportation Planning:

The APA Transportation Planning Division (TPD) is a professional development organization serving more than 1,500 planners and others who are interested in transportation planning and related activities. The TPD is the largest of the American Planning Association's 17 divisions. The purpose of the TPD is to serve as a professional resource for transportation and planning professionals by providing timely information and technical support, offering expert testimony and hosting social events to make and renew acquaintances among colleagues.

 

American Public Transportation Association:

APTA members serve the public interest by providing safe, efficient and economical transit services, and by improving those services to meet national energy, environmental, and financial concerns. Over ninety percent of passengers using transit in the U.S. and Canada are carried by APTA members.

Center for Transportation Excellence:

Welcome to the Center for Transportation Excellence, a non-partisan policy research center created to serve the needs of communities and transportation organizations nationwide. The purpose of the center and this website is to provide research materials, strategies and other forms of support on the benefits of public transportation.

North Carolina Public Transportation Association:

The North Carolina Public Transportation Association, Inc. (NCPTA), is a private, non-profit organization, incorporated on January 18, 1983, that promotes public transportation throughout the state. NCPTA's 200 members represent a diverse group, all working toward one goal: increased mobility options for North Carolinians. NCPTA members range from large urban systems to the smallest of rural systems; bus and van manufacturers; educational entities; private companies; local and state elected officials; and individuals interested in public transportation.

Transit Oriented Development

During the past decade there has been a tectonic shift in consumer preferences, employer location strategies, and transportation planning, and at the convergence of these trends is a new style of development called Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). A new organization is needed to bring this product to scale in a way that increases housing affordability and choice, revitalizes downtowns and urban and suburban neighborhoods, and generates lasting public and private returns.