Urban Transportation Planning In the United States: An Historical Overview: Fifth Edition

Chapter 5. Improved Intergovernmental Coordination

As the number and scope of federal programs for urban development and transportation projects expanded, there was increasing concern over the uncoordinated manner in which these project were being carried out. Each of these federal programs had separate grant requirements which were often development with little regard to the requirements of other programs. Projects proceeded through the approval and implementation process uncoordinated with other projects that were occurring in the same area.

During this period, several actions were taken to alleviate this problem. First, was an attempt to better integrate urban development and transportation programs at the federal level by bringing them together in two new Cabinet level departments, HUD and DOT. Second, was the creation of a project review process to improve intergovernmental coordination at both the federal and local levels. States and local governments also moved to address this problem by consolidating functions and responsibilities. Many states created their own departments of transportation. In addition, states and local communities created broader, multifunctional planning agencies to better coordinate and plan areawide development.

The urban transportation planning process transitioned into the "continuing" phase as most urban areas completed their first plans. There was a new interest in low capital approaches to reducing traffic congestion using techniques such as reserved bus lanes, traffic engineering improvements, and fringe parking lots. It was also during this time that national concern was focused upon the problem of highway safety and the enormous cost of traffic accidents. Environmental issues became more important with legislation addressing the preservation of natural areas and historic sites, and providing relocation assistance for households and businesses.

Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965

The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 created the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to better coordinate urban programs at the federal level. In addition, the act amended the Section 701 urban planning assistance program established under the Housing Act of 1954 by authorizing grants to be made to "...organizations composed of public officials whom he (the Secretary of HUD) finds to be representative of the political jurisdictions within a metropolitan area or urban region..." for the purposes of comprehensive planning (Washington Center, 1970).

This provision encouraged the formation of regional planning organizations controlled by elected rather than appointed officials. It gave impetus to the formation of such organizations as councils of governments (COGs). It also encouraged local governments to cooperate in addressing their problems in a regional context.

1966 Amendments to the Urban Mass Transportation Act

To fill several gaps in the 1964 Urban Mass Transportation Act, a number of amendments were passed in 1966. One created the technical studies program, which provided federal assistance up to a two-thirds federal matching share for planning, engineering, and designing of urban mass transportation projects or other similar technical activities leading to application for a capital grant.

Another section authorized grants to be made for management training. A third authorized a project to study and prepare a program of research for developing new systems of urban transportation. This section resulted in a report to Congress in 1968, Tomorrow's Transportation: New Systems for the Urban Future (Cole, 1968), which recommended a long-range balanced program for research on hardware, planning, and operational improvements. It was this study that first brought to public attention many new systems such as dial-a-bus, personal rapid transit, dual mode, pallet systems, and tracked air-cushioned vehicle systems. This study was the basis for numerous research efforts to develop and refine new urban transportation technologies that would improve on existing ones.

Highway and Motor Vehicle Safety Acts of 1966

In 1964, highway deaths amounted to 48,000 persons, 10 percent above 1963, and the death rate was increasing. In March of 1965, newly Senator Abraham Ribicoff, chairman of the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization of the Government Operations Committee, held hearings on the issue of highway safety to focus national concern on this national tragedy. Ralph Nader who was already working on highway safety volunteered to assist Senator Ribicoff's committee. He provided much material to the committee based on his research and a book that he was writing on traffic safety (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 1986).

In the July hearings, General Motors" president admitted that his company had only spent $1.25 million on safety in the previous year. Following that disclosure, President Johnson ordered Special Assistant Joseph Califano to develop a transportation package. In November 1965, Mr. Nader's book, Unsafe at Any Speed, was published with criticism of both the automobile industry and the traffic safety establishment.

In February 1966, President Johnson told the American Trial Lawyers Association that highway deaths were second only to the Vietnam War as the "gravest problem before the nation." A month later, the President's message requested the Congress to establish a department of transportation. His message also outlined a national traffic safety act to require the establishment of motor vehicle standards, provide for state grants in aid for safety programs, and fund traffic safety research. By August, both housed unanimously passed a motor vehicle standards bill and, with only 3 dissenting votes in the Senate, passed state program legislation. The final bills were signed by President Johnson on September 9, 1966.

The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 established the National Traffic Safety Agency in the Department of Commerce. It required the establishment of minimum safety standards for motor vehicles and equipment, authorized research and development, and expanded the National Driver Register of individuals whose licenses had been denied, terminated, or withdrawn. According to the act, each standard was required to be practical, meet the need for motor vehicle safety, and stated in objective terms. In prescribing standards, the Secretary was required to consider: (1) relevant available motor vehicle safety data, (2) whether the proposed standard in appropriate for the particular motor vehicle or equipment for which it is prescribed, and (3) the extent to which the standard contributed to carrying out the purposes of the act (Comptroller General, 1976).

The Highway Safety Act of 1966 established the National Highway Safety Agency in the Department of Commerce. It was designed to provide a coordinated national highway safety program through financial assistance to the states. Under this act, states were required to establish highway safety programs in accordance with federal standards. Federal funds were made available under Section 402, to be allocated by population and highway mileage, to assist in financing these programs with a 75 percent federal and 25 percent matching ratio (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 1986).

The two safety agencies were combined by Executive Order 11357 into the National Highway Safety Bureau in the newly created DOT. By 1969, the Bureau, under Dr. William Haddon Jr., had established 29 motor vehicle standards and 13 highway safety standards and all states had established highway safety programs. By the end of 1972, the agency had issued a total of 43 motor vehicle standards, covering vehicle accident prevention and passenger protection, and 18 highway safety standards, covering vehicle inspection, registration, motorcycle safety, driver education, traffic laws and records, accident investigation and reporting, pupil transportation and police traffic services (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 1986).

These two safety acts provided the basis for a practical, comprehensive national highway safety program to reduce deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicles.

Department of Transportation Act of 1966

In 1966 the Department of Transportation (DOT) was created to coordinate transportation programs and to facilitate development and improvement of coordinated transportation service utilizing private enterprise to the maximum extent feasible. The Department of Transportation Act declared that the nation required fast, safe, efficient, and convenient transportation at the lowest cost consistent with other national objectives including the conservation of natural resources. DOT was directed to provide leadership in the identification of transportation problems and solutions, stimulate new technological advances, encourage cooperation among all interested parties, and recommend national policies and programs to accomplish these objectives.

Section 4(f) of the act required the preservation of natural areas. It prohibited the use of land for a transportation project from a park, recreation area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site unless there was no feasible and prudent alternative and the project was planned in such a manner as to minimize harm to the area. This was the earliest statutory language directed at minimizing the negative effects of transportation construction projects on the natural environment.

The DOT Act left unclear, however, the division of responsibility for urban mass transportation between DOT and HUD. It took more than a year for DOT and HUD to come to an agreement on their respective responsibilities. This agreement, known as Reorganization Plan No. 2, took effect in July 1968. Under it, DOT assumed responsibility for mass transportation capital grants, technical studies, and managerial training grant programs subject to HUD certification of the planning requirements for capital grant applications. Research and development (R&D) was divided up. DOT assumed R&D responsibility for improving the operation of conventional transit systems and HUD assumed R&D responsibility for urban transportation as it related to comprehensive planning. Joint responsibility was assigned for R&D on advanced technology systems. The Reorganization Plan also created the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) (Miller, 1972).

National Historic Preservation Act of 1966

Through the 1950's and 1960's, while the federal government funded numerous public works and urban renewal projects, federal preservation law applied only to a handful of nationally significant properties. As a result, federal projects destroyed or damaged thousands of historic properties. Congress recognized that new legislation was needed to protect the many other properties that were being harmed by federal activities (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, 1986).

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was passed to address these concerns. The act established the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to provide advice on national preservation policy. Section 106 of the act required federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic preservation, and to afford the Council the opportunity to comment on such undertakings. Section 110 required federal agencies to identify and protect historic properties under their control.

The Section 106 review process established by the Council required a federal agency funding or otherwise involved in a proposed project to identify historic properties that might be affected by the project and find acceptable means to avoid or mitigate any adverse impact. Federal agencies were to consult with the Council and State Historic Preservation Officers, appointed by the Governors, in carrying out this process.

Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966

With the growth in federal grant programs for urban renewal, highways, transit, and other construction projects, there was a need for a mechanism to coordinate these projects. The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 was enacted to ensure that federal grants were not working at cross purposes. Section 204 of that act was significant in asserting federal interest in improving the coordination of public facility construction projects to obtain maximum effectiveness of federal spending and to relate such projects to areawide development plans.

Section 204 required that all applications for the planning and construction of facilities be submitted to an areawide planning agency for review and comment. The areawide agency was required to be composed of local elected officials. The objective was to encourage the coordination of planning and construction of physical facilities in urban areas. Section 204 was also designed to stimulate operating agencies with narrow functional responsibilities to examine the relationship of their projects to areawide plans for urban growth. Procedures to implement this act were issued by the Bureau of the Budget in Circular No. 82, "Coordination of Federal Aids in Metropolitan Areas Under Section 204 of the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966" (Bureau of the Budget, 1967).

In response to these review requirements, many urban areas established new planning agencies or reorganized existing agencies to include elected officials on their policy boards. By the end of 1969, only six metropolitan lacked an areawide review agency (Washington Center, 1970).

Dartmouth Conference on Urban Development Models

Land-use planning models were developed as an adjunct to transportation planning to provide forecasts of population, employment, and land-use for transportation forecasting models. From the mid 1950s there was rapid development in the field stimulated by newly available computers and advances in operations research and systems analysis (Putman, 1979). Developments were discussed at a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania in October 1964 that was documented in a special issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Planners (Harris, 1965).

By 1967 the Land-Use Evaluation Committee of the Highway Research Board determined that there was need for another assessment of work in the field, which was progressing in an uncoordinated fashion. A conference was held in Dartmouth, New Hampshire, in June 1967 to identify the areas of research that were most needed (Hemmens, 1968).

The conferees recommended that agencies sponsoring research on land use models, generally the federal government, expand the capabilities of their in-house staff to handle these models. They recommended steps to improve data acquisition and handling. Further research on broader models that included social goals was recommended. Conferees recommended that research on the behavioral aspects of the individual decision units be conducted. Concern was expressed about bridging the gap between modelers and decisionmakers. Professional standards for design, calibration and use of models was also encouraged (Hemmens, 1968).

The early optimism in the field faded as the land development models did not perform up to the expectations of researchers and decisionmakers, particularly at the small area level. Modelers had underestimated the task of simulating complex urban phenomena. Many of these modeling efforts were performed by planning agencies that had to meet unreasonable time deadlines. (Putman, 1979) Models had become more complex with larger data requirements as submodels were added to encompass more aspects of the urban development process. They were too costly to construct and operate, and many still did not produce usable results. By the late 1960s land-use modeling activity in the United States entered a period of dormancy that continued until the mid 1970s.

Reserved Bus Lanes

As construction of the Interstate highway progressed, highway engineers came under increasing criticism for providing underpriced facilities that competed unfairly with transit service. Critics were also concerned that the 3C planning process was not giving sufficient attention to transit options in the development of long-range urban transportation plans.

The first official response to this criticism came in April 1964 in a speech by E. H. Holmes, Director of Planning for the Bureau of Public Roads. Mr. Holmes stated, "Since over three-quarters of transit patrons ride on rubber tires, not on steel rails, transit has to be for highways, not against them. And vice versa, highways have to be for transit, not against it, for the more that travelers patronize transit the easier will be the highway engineer's job." He went on to advocate the use of freeways by buses in express service. This would increase bus operating speeds, reduce their travel times, and thereby make bus service more competitive with car travel. The BPR position was that the reservation of a lane for buses was reasonable if its usage by bus passengers exceeded the number of persons that would be moved in the same period in cars, for example, 3,000 persons per hour for a lane of freeway (Holmes, 1964).

This position was formalized in Instructional Memorandum (IM) 21-13-67, "Reserved Bus Lanes," issued by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in August 1967. In addition to reiterating the warrant for reserving of lanes for buses, the IM stated the warrant for preferential use of lanes by buses. Under preferential use, other vehicles would be allowed to use the lane but only in such numbers that they do not degrade the travel speeds of the buses. The number of other vehicles would be controlled by metering their flow onto the lane. The total number of persons using the preferential lanes was to be greater than would be accommodated by opening the lanes to general traffic.

The FHWA actively promoted the use of exclusive and preferential bus treatments. Expenditures for bus priority projects on arterial highways, including loading platforms and shelters, became eligible for federal-aid highway funds under the Traffic Operations Program to Improve Capacity and Safety (TOPICS), which was initiated as an experimental program in 1967. Reserved lanes for buses on freeways were eligible under the regular federal-aid highway programs.

Many urban areas adopted bus priority techniques to increase the carrying capacity of highway facilities and make transit service more attractive at a limited cost. By 1973 one study reported on more than 200 bus priority projects in the United States and elsewhere. These included busways on exclusive rights-of-way and on freeways, reserved freeway lanes and ramps, bus malls, reserved lanes on arterial streets, traffic signal preemption, and supporting park-and-ride lots and central city terminals (Levinson, 1973).

National Highway Needs Studies

The expected completion of the Interstate highway system in the mid 1970s lead to consideration of new directions for the federal-aid highway program. Recognizing the need for information on which to formulate future highway programs, the U.S. Senate, in section 3 of the Senate Joint Resolution 81 (approved August 28, 1965) called for a biennial reporting of highway needs beginning in 1968.

In April 1965, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads had requested the states to prepare estimates of future highway needs for the period 1965-85. The states were given only a few months to prepare the estimates and they relied upon available data and rapid estimating techniques. The results were documented in the 1968 National Highway Needs Report. The estimated cost of $294 billion to meet the anticipated highway needs was a staggering sum. It included another 40,000 of freeways in addition to the 41,000 miles in the Interstate system (U.S. Congress, 1968a). The supplement to the report recommended the undertaking of a nationwide functional highway classification study as the basis for realigning the federal-aid highway systems (U.S. Congress, 1968b).

The 1968 report focused greater attention on urban areas than in the past. The supplement recommended that a larger share of federal-aid highway funds should be made available to urban areas. As a means to accomplish this, the supplement discussed expanding the urban extensions of the primary and secondary highway systems to include all principal arterial routes into a federal-aid urban system. To overcome the difficulties of urban area decisionmaking among fragmented local governments, it suggested requiring the establishment of areawide agencies to develop five-year capital improvement programs. The agencies would be governed by locally elected officials (U.S. Congress, 1968b).

The supplement also recommended the use of federal-aid highway funds for a parking research and development projects, and for construction of fringe parking facilities. The establishment of a revolving fund for advance acquisition of right-of-way was recommended as well. The supplement advocated joint development adjacent to or using airspace above or below highways. Such projects should be coordinated jointly by DOT and HUD (U.S. Congress, 1968b).

Many of the recommendations in the Supplement to the 1968 National Highway Needs Report were incorporated into the Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 1968 and 1970. Section 17 of the 1968 act called for a systematic nationwide functional highway classification study in cooperation with state highway departments and local governments. The manual for this functional classification study stated that, "All existing public roads and streets within a State are to be classified on the basis of the most logical usage of existing facilities to serve present travel and land use" (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1969b). This was the first major study to collect detailed functional system information on a nationwide basis.

The supplement to the 1970 National Highway Needs Report detailed the results of the 1968 functional classification study which covered existing facilities under current conditions of travel and land use. The results showed that there was wide variation among states in the coincidence of highways classified functionally and which federal-aid system they were on. This disparity was greater in urban areas than in rural areas. The report demonstrated that arterial highways carried the bulk of highway travel. For example, in urban areas in 1968, arterial highways constituted 19 percent of the miles of facilities and carried 75 percent of the vehicle miles of travel (U.S. Congress, 1970). (Figure 8)

Figure 8
National Distribution of Miles versus Vehicle-Miles of
Travel Served on the Functional Systems in Urban Areas - 1968

The 1972 National Highway Needs Report documented the results of the 1970-1990 functional classification study. It combined a projected functional classification for 1990 with a detailed inventory and needs estimate for all functional classes including local roads and streets. It recommended the realignment of federal-aid highway systems based upon functional usage in a subsequent year such as 1980. This recommendation for realignment was incorporated into the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. Highway needs were estimated for the twenty-year period to 1990 under nationally uniform "minimum tolerable conditions". Of the estimated $592 billion in needs, 43 percent were on federal-aid systems as they existed in 1970. Over 50 percent of these needs were considered to be "backlog," that is, requiring immediate attention (U.S. Congress, 1972b and 1972c).

The 1974 National Highway Needs Report updated the needs estimates that were reported in the 1972 report. The 1974 Highway Needs Study was conducted as part of the 1974 National Transportation Study. The 1974 highway report analyzed the sensitivity of the needs estimates to the changes of reduced forecasted travel and a lower level of service than a minimum tolerable conditions. The report clarified that the highway needs estimates are dependent upon the specific set of standards of highway service and highway design on which they are based.

The highway needs studies represented a ongoing process to assess the nation's highway system and quantify the nature and scope of future highway requirements. The studies were carried out as cooperative efforts of the federal, state and local governments. The extensive involvement of state and local governments lent considerable credibility to the studies. Consequently, the highway needs reports had a major influence on highway legislation, and the structure and funding of highway programs (U.S. Congress, 1975).

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 established the Traffic Operations Program to Improve Capacity and Safety (TOPICS). It authorized $200 million each for fiscal years 1970 and 1971. The federal matching share was set at 50 percent. The program was designed to reduce traffic congestion and facilitate the flow of traffic in urban areas. Prior to the act, the Bureau of Public Roads had initiated TOPICS as an experimental program. IM 21-7-67, which established guidelines for TOPICS, divided urban streets into two categories. Those on the federal-aid Primary and Secondary systems were considered Type 1. Other major streets were under Type 2. Only traffic operations improvements were allowed on Type 2 systems (Gakenheimer and Meyer, 1977).

The TOPICS program grew out of a long history of the BPR's efforts to expand the use of traffic engineering techniques. In 1959, the BPR sponsored the Wisconsin Avenue Study to demonstrate the effectiveness of various traffic management methods when applied in a coordinated fashion (U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1962).

TOPICS projects were to result from the 3C urban transportation planning process. By October 1969 there were 160 cities actively involved in TOPICS and another 96 cities in preliminary negotiations expected to result in active projects. Even so, the level of planning detail for TOPICS projects was not totally compatible with the regional scale of the planning process (Gakenheimer and Meyer, 1977).

The TOPICS program was reauthorized for fiscal years 1972 and 1973 at $100 million per year. But the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 ended further authorizations and merged the TOPICS systems into the new federal-aid Urban system. TOPICS had accomplished its objective of increasing the acceptance of traffic engineering techniques as a means of improving the efficiency of the urban transportation system. It also played an important role in encouraging the concept of traffic management (Gakenheimer and Meyer, 1977).

In addition to launching the TOPICS program, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 incorporated several provisions designed to protect the environment and reduce the negative effects of highway construction. The Act repeated the requirement in Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966 on the preservation of public park and recreation lands, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, and historic sites to clarify that the provision applied to highways. Moreover the Act required public hearings on the economic, social, and environmental effects of proposed highway projects and their consistency with local urban goals and objectives. The act also established the highway beautification program. In addition a highway relocation assistance program was authorized to provide payments to households and businesses displaced by construction projects. Additionally, a revolving fund for the advanced acquisition of right-of-way was established to minimize future dislocations due to highway construction and reduce the cost of land and clearing it. Also, the Act authorized funds for a fringe parking demonstration program.

Many of the provisions of the Act were early responses to the concern for environmental quality and for ameliorating the negative effects of highway construction.

"Continuing" Urban Transportation Planning

By 1968 most urbanized areas had completed or were well along in their 3C planning process. The Federal Highway Administration turned its attention to the "continuing" aspect of the planning process. In May 1968, IM 50-4-68, "Operations Plans for 'Continuing' Urban Transportation Planning" was issued. The IM required the preparation of an operations plan for continuing transportation planning in these areas. The objective was to maintain the responsiveness of planning to the needs of local areas and to potential changes (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1968).

The operations plans were to address the various items needed to perform continuing planning, including: the organizational structure; scope of activities and the agencies that were responsible; a description of the surveillance methodology to identify changes in land development and travel demand; a description of land use and travel forecasting procedures; and work remaining on the ten basic elements of the 3C planning process (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1968).

Guidelines were provided identifying the five elements considered essential for a continuing planning process. (Figure 9) The "surveillance" element focused on monitoring changes in the area in development, sociodemographic characteristics, and travel. "Reappraisal" dealt with three levels of review of the transportation forecasts and plan to determine if they were still valid. Every five years the plan and forecast were to be updated to retain a 20-year time horizon. The third element, "service," was to assist agencies in the implementation of the plan. The "procedural development" element emphasized the need to upgrade analysis techniques. Last was the publication of an "annual report" on these activities as a means of communicating with local officials and citizens (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1968).

Extensive training and technical assistance was provided by the FHWA to shift urban transportation planning into a continuing mode of operation.

Figure 9
The Continuing Urban Transportation Planning Process

Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1968

Section 204 of the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Act was the forerunner of much more extensive legislation, adopted in 1968, designed to coordinate federal grant-in-aid programs at federal and state levels. The Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1968 required that federal agencies notify the governors or legislatures of the purpose and amounts of any grants-in-aid to their states. The purpose of this requirement was to make it possible for states to plan more effectively for their overall development (Washington Center, 1970).

The act required that the areawide planning agency be established under state enabling legislation. It provided that in the absence of substantial reasons to the contrary, federal grants shall be made to general purpose units of government rather than special purpose agencies. The act also transferred administration of these intergovernmental coordination requirements from HUD to the Bureau of the Budget.

Bureau of the Budget's Circular No. A-95

To implement the 1968 Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, the Bureau of the Budget issued Circular No. A-95, "Evaluation, Review, and Coordination of Federal Assistance Programs and Projects," in July 1969 (Bureau of the Budget, 1969), which superseded Circular No. A-82 (Bureau of the Budget, 1967). This circular required that the governor of each state designate a "clearinghouse" at the state level and for each metropolitan area. The function of these clearinghouses was to review and comment on projects proposed for federal-aid in terms of their compatibility with comprehensive plans and to coordinate among agencies having plans and programs that might be affected by the projects. These clearinghouses had to be empowered under state or local laws to perform comprehensive planning in an area (Washington Center, 1970).

The circular established a project notification and review system (PNRS) which specified how the review and coordination process would be carried out and the amount of time for each step in the process. (Figure 10) The PNRS contained an "early warning" feature that required that a local applicant for a federal grant or loan notify the state and local clearinghouses at the time it decided to seek assistance. The clearinghouse had 30 days to indicate further interest in the project or to arrange to provide project coordination. This regulation was designed to alleviate the problem many review agencies had of learning of an application only after it had been prepared, and thereby having little opportunity to help shape it (Washington Center, 1970).

Circular No. A-95 provided the most definitive federal statement of the process through which planning for urban areas should be accomplished. Its emphasis was not on substance but on process and on the intergovernmental linkages required to carry out the process.

The various acts and regulations to improve intergovernmental program coordination accelerated the creation of broader multifunctional agencies. At the state level, 39 Departments of Transportation had been created by 1977. Most of the departments had multimodal planning, programming, and coordinating functions. At the local level, there was a growing trend for transportation planning to be performed by comprehensive planning agencies, generally those designated as the A-95 clearinghouse (Advisory Commission, 1974).

Figure 10
Comparison of 204 Review Process and Project Notification and Review System