Why is land use important to metropolitan transportation planning?
Transportation investment is an influence in the shaping of communities and the determination of land development potential. Reciprocally, land use decisions influence travel patterns, the use of transportation facilities, and decisions about expansion of the transportation network.

WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?
Sustainable development, or “smart growth,” is development in and around city and town centers, in other previously developed areas, or near transit stations. A key strategy for attaining sustainable development is the coordination of transportation planning and land use planning. It benefits communities and protects the environment, making use of existing infrastructure and utilities and facilitating pedestrian access to schools, civic facilities, retail or employment centers, or other destinations.

The Boston region has many assets that support sustainable development, such as the tradition of New England town centers, many cultural and historical resources, and an extensive transit system.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?
Sustainable development has many benefits when compared to sprawl development. The cost of infrastructure to support low-density, dispersed development is higher per capita than for compact development. There are also social, economic, and natural resource costs associated with the development of open space as opposed to investment in previously developed areas. In addition, sustainable development principles can accomplish transportation objectives by helping to shape land use patterns. These objectives include:

Reductions in vehicle miles of travel (VMT), pollutant emissions, and energy consumption
Development that is concentrated and contiguous and that mixes residential and commercial land uses makes it possible for households to meet their daily needs with short automobile trips or by walking, bicycling, or taking transit. This reduces VMT, congestion, and energy consumption, and improves air quality.

Increased transit use and potential
Clustering high-density development around transit facilities increases the number of destinations—commercial, residential, governmental, cultural—that can conveniently be reached by transit, which in turn leads to higher ridership, cost-effectiveness, and potential for investment in enhanced transit service.

Walkable communities
Concentrated, mixed land uses coupled with pedestrian-friendly site design not only facilitate the use of alternatives to automobile travel within a community, but also encourage their use for travel to the community. The knowledge that no car will be needed after arriving at one’s destination diminishes the perceived need to use a car to get there.

HOW WILL THE MPO ASSESS THE INTERACTION OF TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS WITH LAND USE?
An important part of the MPO’s process for selecting projects for the JOURNEY TO 2030 Transportation Plan is the development of several possible future scenarios that include population and employment projections and transportation projects. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency for metropolitan Boston, recently completed a “baseline” population-and-employment projection based on past trends. MAPC, in consultation with the MPO, will develop a second land-use projection, one in which trends shift, in some measure, in the direction of sustainable development. This second projection will be informed by values emerging from the MetroFuture initiative.

The group of projects chosen to be included in the Transportation Plan will be analyzed, in the context of population and employment projections, for its effect on air quality and on the provision of transportation serving low-income and minority populations.

METROFUTURE: THE BOSTON REGION’S LAND USE PLAN
MAPC’s MetroFuture initiative is a comprehensive plan to develop a vision for the future of the Boston region. This initiative includes the projection of future demographics, and it is assisting the MPO in long-range planning by providing information for use in developing the JOURNEY TO 2030 Transportation Plan. The MetroFuture projections of population and employment offer a picture of demographic change in metropolitan Boston, including the population, number of households, changing age groups, and the number of jobs by sector.