Moving Toward Sustainability: Transforming a Comprehensive Land Use and Transportation Plan

Abstract

Sustainability and sustainable development have been, perhaps, the most debated yet least applied concepts in urban and regional planning in recent years. Missing in all the rhetoric on and research into sustainable development are guidelines for moving toward plans that, either incrementally or comprehensively, incorporate sustainable objectives and the steps necessary to implement them. An approach is outlined for developing measures and steps to transform a traditional community-based comprehensive land use and transportation plan into one incorporating sustainable development objectives and measures. Traditional objectives of comprehensive land use and transportation planning are identified and linked to their sustainability equivalents. Four elements are discussed: land use, transportation, environmental factors, and economic development. A four-step, dynamic process is described for implementing the model and transforming the plan objectives, its implementation, and its measures of success. A tool for strategically assessing the political climate for change is included to assist planners in identifying an acceptable scale of movement toward sustainability. In conclusion, the elements presented provide a strategy and tools for moving forward in adopting sustainability as a local objective for land use and transportation planning.