Op-ed: Federal policy has become hostile to sustainability and equity. A new framework shows how state and local DOTs can take up the baton.
This is your first of three free stories this month. Become a free or sustaining member to read unlimited articles, webinars and ebooks.
The U.S. spends upwards of $400 billion per year to build, operate and maintain transportation infrastructure and services. That level of yearly spending — more than the cost of the entire Interstate Highway System, in today’s dollars — can fundamentally change our national landscape and the way we move around it.
Those investments can fuel thriving local economies, guarantee equal access to opportunities, and end the current slew of traffic violence and harmful emissions. Or we can invest endlessly in gridlocked highways and drive communities farther apart.
The current federal administration has signaled a hard shift from policies that can make our transportation systems more sustainable and equitable, leaving others to shoulder the responsibility. While every city and town has a role to play, states control around two-thirds of transportation spending, including the bulk of federal funds.
We believe states have a unique opportunity to lead in today’s evolving transportation landscape. By learning from peers and building on proven strategies, agencies can make necessary progress without reinventing the wheel.
My research group, the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin, recently compiled some of the best ideas and lessons transportation agencies can adopt into a framework called Innovative DOT. Our framework includes examples and best practices that planners and advocates can look to for inspiration. Here are the highlights.
Transportation officials should lead with a bold and resilient vision. Like Vermont’s Resilience Improvement Plan, states can prioritize their infrastructure investments to prevent worsening damage from floods and fires. However, resilience means much more than more durable roads and bridges. It means rethinking underlying funding mechanisms, traffic models, and assumptions to prepare for what looks like an uncertain future.
A handful states like California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota and Washington have set ambitious climate goals that require not just a transition to EVs, but also heavy investments in transit, biking and walking. This also means coordinating with local governments to discourage sprawling development patterns and moving away from outdated planning models that assume driving will continue to grow like it did in the 20th century. Colorado’s new greenhouse gas planning rule has shifted funding from long-planned highway projects to multimodal investments.
Agency staff can build projects to meet the needs of people and communities, not just to move cars. Although many transportation investments are routine highway projects, many more now require agencies to consider how walkers, bikers and transit riders use the street. The Florida DOT rewrote its design guide to ensure roads are designed to match their surrounding environment. Other states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Washington — require every road project to meet minimum standards for people walking, biking and using public transit.
Investments must also be realistic and aligned with available funding. Many state leaders have championed new funding streams like mileage-based fees, but few have pushed to make the most of every dollar they spend. In an unprecedented move away from legacy projects and political influence, Virginia’s SMART SCALE program scrapped the state’s old ad hoc project list and transparently re-prioritized projects in terms of their relative benefit per dollar for drivers, transit users and people walking or biking.
State transportation agencies should make the most of their existing assets. Just as a homeowner would fix a leaky roof before adding onto their house, more states are prioritizing overdue maintenance over adding new infrastructure—a policy called “fix it first.” Some are also taking steps to improve traffic efficiency long before they consider adding new lanes. This includes clearing crashes quicker, coordinating better with freight movers, and even rethinking whether certain roads should carry fast-moving traffic to begin with.
A new law in Delaware, for example, empowers its transportation agency to design roads for slower speeds on major commercial corridors. These types of roads are sometimes called “stroads,” because they combine the functions of a street (serving neighborhoods and businesses) and a road (fast travel). They tend to serve both functions poorly and they are often some of the most dangerous corridors for crashes.
None of these changes can happen, however, without agency leaders fueling a culture of innovation. Early in their history, highway departments were staffed mainly by talented engineers who wrote many of the standards we still use today. However, today’s complex needs call for a more varied skill set. Many agencies are looking toward non-engineers for leadership roles and recruiting for a range of skills, from data analysts to experts in community involvement. The transportation departments in Minnesota and Washington enlisted artists to help shape agency culture, improve communication, and build stronger relationships with the public.
Success at transportation agencies is not just about who agencies hire, but how leaders define the role of engineers — giving them both guidance and freedom to deliver innovative projects. In 2014, the California Department re-wrote its mission to encompass more than just “improving mobility.” It now guides staff to “promote a safe, sustainable, integrated and efficient transportation system.”
Agencies can also support staff in achieving their forward-looking missions. Through its participation in a Complete Streets Leadership Academy, for example, the Connecticut DOT streamlined the permitting process for projects it considers “quick-build” solutions to improve safety and access.
Using these strategies and learning from peers across the country, transportation agencies can still make progress toward their sustainability and equity goals, even with greatly diminished federal support.
Chris McCahill, Ph.D., is the managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI), a joint program of Smart Growth America and the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin. SSTI fosters collaboration among state DOTs, providing a national forum to advance sustainability, equity, and transparency governance.
