The state-of-the-art in urban transportation planning or how we got here

This paper traces the development of urban transportation planning in the United States, focusing particularly on the influence that three previous conferences -Sagamore (1958), Hershey (1962), and Williamsburg (1965) - have had on the course of this development. Included also are comments on the current state of the art of urban transportation planning and observations as to its future direction.The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1934, which authorized the use of 1 percent funds for highway planning is identified as the progenitor of urban transportation planning in the U.S., and two reports based on information developed by the highway planning surveys first funded under the 1934 Act, Toll Roads and Free Roads (1939) and Interregional Highways (1944), are credited with preparing the ground for much of the urban transportation planning that was to follow.The rapid development of home interview survey techniques in the late 1940's and the full-scale introduction of computer technology in the Detroit Area Transportation Study are noted, as is the work of the National Committee on Urban Transportation, which was initiated in 1954 under sponsorship of the Automotive Safety Foundation. In addition to its substantial technical contributions, the NCUT, through its success in mobilizing the cooperative efforts of virtually every major group concerned with urban transportation, stimulated significant gains in Federal-State-local relationships and paved the way for increased Federal aid to cities in solving their local transportation problems.The impact of the 1956 and 1962 Federal-Aid Highway Acts on urban transportation planning is assessed. The substantial contributions, of the Hartford, Sagamore, Hershey, and Williamsburg conferences are discussed, as are their shortcomings. It is noted that many of our present concerns — environmental impacts, relationships between transportation and land use, need for cooperation among all levels of government, the multi-modal nature of urban transportation, and the need for citizen involvement, to name a few — were incorporated in the provisions of either one or another of the Federal-Aid statutes in the 1950's and 60's or appear in the recommendations of the several conferences. That these matters still concern us today is given as evidence that planning has not fully lived up to its promise and responsibility, that more rather than less planning is needed, and that, above all, new leadership to pick up where the old has left off must soon assert itself.