Bringing transportation up to speed

A few years ago, I chatted with European friends about our daily commutes. I learned that Udo, in Hamburg, and his brother Dieter in Munich, Germany, as well as Curt in Stockholm, Sweden, and I, took nearly the same amount of time and spent about the same amount of money each month getting to and from work.

How we did it, however, was where we diverged dramatically.

Udo and Curt rode commuter trains into town. From there, Udo walked five more minutes to his office and Curt took a local bus to his job. Dieter took a train into town, switched to a subway and then walked five minutes to his office.

I drove through New Orleans’ rush hour traffic surrounded by unskilled motorists occupying poorly designed highways leading to miserably maintained city streets.

Guess which of us was more stressed by the time he got to work?

A decent public transportation system leads to happier commuters, less pollution, less wear and tear on personal vehicles, less traffic on roads, and conserves fuel.

So when the Okaloosa-Walton Transportation Planning Organization unveiled its latest long-term plans at a recent public meeting in Crestview, you can imagine the excitement when we saw provision for an electric light rail system linking a Crestview park-and-ride with Eglin Air Force Base then continuing to connect in Fort Walton Beach to a Gulf-front train serving Pensacola to Panama City and communities in between.

Imagine it! Ditching the car for a stress-free ride to work at Eglin or a shopping day at Destin Commons and Silver Sands, or a family trip to the beach and the Gulfarium.

I jest. What the plan really calls for is just a handful of new sidewalks for Crestview, another stoplight to further stymie traffic on U.S. Highway 90, and lots and lots of concrete to be poured at the south end of the county.

Sadly, while our cousins in Europe have been perfecting the art of transportation planning, our planners stalwartly and stubbornly stick to the outmoded private-vehicle-on-ever-expanding-highways model. While Europeans have been weaned from their cars, rather than our road planners helping us kick the habit, they keep enabling us.

Worse still, though they eagerly flatten more land and pour more concrete over it, little is done to make using our roads any more efficient.

While driving in Sweden with Curt, I encountered a miraculous system called the “green way.” We entered a town about Crestview’s size on a four-lane road like S.R. 85. Along the way, digital speed limit signs told us how fast we had to go (never exceeding the speed limit) to maintain green lights through town. Not once did we have to stop. That was 1980.

Two months ago, while participating in our exchange with Crestview’s sister city, I rode through many comparably sized communities in France. On the main roads, again many the size of S.R. 85, we rarely encountered a single traffic signal. Traffic in major intersections flowed smoothly in all four directions thanks to sensible roundabouts.

European traffic planners have found that by removing signals and pavement markings and installing roundabouts, traffic in major intersections actually slows down, flows smoother and has fewer accidents.

“The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there’s a problem with a road, they always try to add something,” said Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman in an interview in the Dec. 2004 issue of Wired. “To my mind, it’s much better to remove things.”

Think that’ll never work here? Think again. When West Palm Beach removed traffic signals, eliminated turn lanes and narrowed the roadbed on several major thoroughfares, traffic flow improved, accidents decreased and trip times were shortened.

If we can’t have better and more convenient public transport, which is what our goal should be, then innovations proven here and abroad can at least improve traffic flow. But, OWTPO officials said, their office’s improvements take 20 years to plan, seek funding for and implement.

Twenty years ago, gas was $1.16 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 1990, Crestview was a small, rural town. Who knew gas prices would more than double, or that Crestview would become the biggest, fastest growing community in the county, or that 6,000-plus new residents would be moving here next year?

A lot changes in 20 years, but sadly, OWTPO’s plans seem to lack the flexibility to keep up with technology, societal changes, or the need for a responsible, economic, energy-efficient way to simultaneously move bunches of people around the county.

Eventually roadways reach a saturation level where it is just foolish, wasteful and frivolous to keep pouring concrete. We’ve about reached that time. That money should be used to lay rails and get cars off the roads.

To their credit, OWTPO did, at last, recommend synchronizing traffic signals for county thoroughfares. It’s about time. The technology has only been around 35 years.

To read “Roads Gone Wild,” the fascinating story of European traffic engineering, in Wired, visit www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html?pg=1&topic=traffic&topic_set=