Kyle becomes stronger if we address traffic the way we address flooding

I understand there’s another one of those CAMPO meetings coming up to look at "long-range" solutions to the area’s transportation issues, which, of course, means building more roads, a 20^th century solution to a 21^st century problem. I wish I could take credit for this line, but I can’t (still, that’s not going to keep me from appropriating it): "Solving traffic problems by adding more roads is like solving obesity by buying a larger pair of pants."

There’s going to be a conference this week in Austin on streets and one of the speakers at that conference is Charles Marohn, a professional engineer and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He is the author of an insightful book Thoughts on Building Strong Towns (Vol. 1), which should be must-reading for any municipal development/planning official. By the time I learned of his appearance in Austin, tickets to his presentation were sold out. Kyle’s Community Development Director Howard J. Koontz is attending the conference and I’m hoping he secured a ticket to see and hear Marohn.

I ran across this article today authored by Marohn that echoes my feelings about transportation plans in general and road construction in particular. It suggests a blueprint I wish our city leaders would follow:

"Between our places — on our roads — congestion signals many things but, for me anyway, it primarily indicates America's cultural — and the engineering profession's technical — misunderstanding of the systems we have built.

Consider the hierarchical road network. It's so commonplace today that we rarely stop to question it. Small, local streets empty into collector streets. Those collectors empty into arterials. The arterials empty into major arterials which eventually end up pouring into our highway systems. Small to big; it's the way things are done

Stop a moment to examine a watershed. There you have ditches that flow into small creeks. Those creeks flow into larger brooks and streams. In turn these flow into larger rivers and, ultimately, these systems come together to form some of the world's major waterways.

We all intuitively understand that, when we experience rain or snow melt on the edges of a watershed, there is a compounding effect that occurs. We've become fairly competent at realizing that, by the time all this rain comes together, it very often produces a flood.

We've so grasped this concept that we've taken steps to address the problem at the source. We don't allow people to fill their wetlands. We require developers to retain their runoff on site. We build retention systems to hold back runoff and feed stormwater into the natural systems more slowly so flooding does not occur. We take these steps and others at the source to mitigate the cumulative, negative impacts of stormwater runoff. Namely: flooding.

Instead of a river network, examine a similar system of roadways during a typical commute. Here we have rain of a different sort: the automobiles that emanate forth from the development we induce, subsidize and cheer for out on the periphery of our cities.

Why are we so shocked when this produces a flood?

WE. CREATE. THE. FLOOD.

If we were going to design a system to generate the maximum amount of congestion each day, this is exactly how it would be done. This is why all American cities — big, small and in between — experience some level of congestion during commutes. We take whatever cars we have and funnel them into the same place at the same time. We manufacture a flood.

I've written a short eBook describing the ways I would go about using price signals to make some rational choices about our transportation investments, but I'm going to simplify by sticking with the river analogy. When we want to decrease flooding in a watershed, we go to the source. We try to retain that water, to absorb it as near to where it originates as possible. We understand this is way cheaper and vastly more effective than building massive infrastructure systems to handle the runoff once it is sent downstream.

For automobile flooding (congestion), the only way to deal with it and still have a successful economy is to address it at the source. We need to absorb those trips locally before they become a flood. Instead of building lanes, we need to be building corner stores. We need local economic ecosystems that create jobs, opportunity and destinations for people as an alternative to those they can only get to by driving.

For nearly seven decades, our national transportation obsession has been about maximizing the amount that you can drive. We now need to focus on minimizing the amount you are forced to drive. If we develop a system that responds to congestion by creating local options, we will not only waste less money on transportation projects that accomplish little, but we will be strengthening the finances of our cities. We can spend way less and get back way more."

It makes sense. Now all we need here in Kyle are officials with that same kind of forward thinking.