New Urbanists and Smart Growth planners have identified new approaches for urban growth including Transit Oriented Development or TOD. In Dhiru Thadani’s book, The Language of Towns & Cities, contributor Jennifer Hurley describes an implementation method as SmartCode, a model for American cities shifting from use-based to form-based zoning codes that promotes a mix of building scales and uses, and prioritizes the pedestrian. While it makes economic sense to cluster high-density development near mass transit hubs, is linking such construction to transportation access a likely formula for satisfactory dwelling? The missing piece, I suggest, is the landscape, and not just a few tree-lined streets and tot lots, but equivalently developed parks linked to wilder places with streams and wildlife. What if TOD became LOD, or Landscape Oriented Development?
Recently, the state of Maryland opened most of a $2.5 billion dollar project called the Intercounty Connector, which is an 18-mile, six-lane toll highway that connects the major arteries of Interstates 270 and 95. As a transportation project, its purpose is to improve mobility along with the related benefits of safety and accessibility. Most of the project is located through sprawl, the existing suburban housing developments typical of Washington’s metropolitan area. Over sixty years in the planning, this highway is for cars and trucks, and critics were opposed to the use of vast public resources for transportation projects that do not develop mass-transit systems; something most land use specialists identify as critical to urban densification and sustainable growth.
As expected, the highway is lined with 29 miles of sound barriers as it skirts or splits existing neighborhoods represented by 56 homeowner and community associations. What is unusual is the extent of the environmental remediation measures taken to restore and to protect 48 acres of wetlands, over 38,000 linear feet of streams, and 88 acres of parkland. Working with floodplains sometimes required the temporary relocation of turtles and other Rare, Threatened and Endangered, and forest interior dwelling species. Over 15 percent of the total budget was spent to mitigate the construction’s impact. Bridges and elevated highways as well as land deckovers separate the road from ecologically sensitive land. The attention to the impact was so great that the project became known as an environmental restoration project with a highway running through it.
However, any significant investment in public infrastructure that perpetuates our car-centered society should be challenged. It is not enough to restore fragile habitats often degraded by inconsiderate past development. Taxpayers want benefits from such expenditures not only because it shortens computing time, but also because it improves where they live. Communities close to woods, streams and parks are valuable, and are especially important for children living in dense urban areas. While it is desirable to have a subway station within walking distance of your home, it is also important to have a place to play Pooh sticks. Communities that have both, had designers who thought about the social human need to be together, and the need to cultivate a relationship with the natural world.
I couldn't agree more. It seemed that the ICC had so much bad press, that nothing short of the promise of a large scale environmental restoration project could have saved it. All of the bad press was soundly justified. In the end the ICC seems to me as nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing.
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