Press Release

New Jersey Steel Case

Supplemental Environmental Project

Project Description
Background
The Rt. 1 Collaborative is a 28-member group made up of private business, civic organizations, environmental groups, institutions and municipal, county and state government. The Collaborative was formed in 1994 as an interdisciplinary working group to collaboratively find and implement solutions in one of New Jersey's most congested travel corridors. The Rt. 1 corridor, from New Brunswick to Woodbridge, was chosen as the study corridor, within a larger study area. The goal of the Collaborative is to create a model research, planning and implementation effort aimed at reducing vehicle miles traveled and trips in a congested corridor, and to provide guidance to enable our work to be replicated.

Project Goals and Tasks
The Collaborative retained a consultant, studied strategies to accomplish our aim, and has completed work for a final report. Extensive modeling of various transportation demand management strategies was undertaken, combining, for the first time, several models to account for land use, trip reduction, bicycle and pedestrian and other demand management strategies' effects. We are now ready to pursue an implementation plan for those strategies that hold the greatest promise to reduce trips and are cost-effective. Below we outline five work products, for which we request funding, and explain how we will use them to push forward(and learn from(practices and policies that will support a more sustainable transportation system.

Reducing The Need for Trips-- Land Use
1. Conduct an inventory of vacant and underutilized land in places in the corridor already well-served by transit, road and other infrastructure, and where development (especially mixed use and in-fill development) would result in trip reduction due to proximity in origins and destinations (goal: municipalities and economic development firms will use the report to guide their decisions about where to develop);
2. Review zoning and site plan ordinances in corridor municipalities, write report and provide to municipalities interested in pursuing zoning changes to encourage mixed use development, reductions in parking and transit-, bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly site development (goal: municipalities embrace proposals and make recommended changes);
3. Pursue revitalization strategies for downtowns and mixed use strategies for developing areas, e.g., Raritan Center and Metropark RR Station area (goal: mixed use development occurs at some targeted sites);

Changing Trips to Alternate Modes
1. Work with N.J. DOT to include in the DOT Capital Plan bicycle and pedestrian capital projects throughout the corridor linking meaningful destinations (goal: projects are planned, funded, and built, and over time—used);
2. Explore the option of regulatory incentives for utility and other stationary source employers who implement "cash out" parking strategies (goal: get one demonstration project running in the corridor).

Project Results and Evaluation Plan
We aim to achieve the following overall results, by which we agree to be judged:
1) to reduce automobile emissions by reducing the need for trips altogether, improving alternative modes and/or removing obstacles to use of such alternatives;
2) to demonstrate that the methods used in these corridor-specific projects are transferable and should be applied routinely in the transportation project development process; and
3) to demonstrate that proposals for the development of land can be fashioned to promote center-oriented development and transit services rather than hinder same while promoting economic prosperity and fostering community well-being.

Quantitative Results— Several numerical measures may be employed to provide a picture of the success of our project:
1. A comparison of actual and projected VMT and traffic volumes, following implementation of recommended strategies (measure of air pollution reduction)
2. Additional highway runoff will be prevented in calculable amounts
3. Funding for walking and bicycling projects
4. Criteria to assess the project's impact on development patterns.

Qualitative Results— We expect to continue to use opinion surveys and focus groups to gain input about travel needs and options in the corridor and gauge community perception and reception of our proposals. Our opinion survey (Public Opinion Research, Oct. 1996) of corridor users revealed that 40% of car commuters would prefer not to drive to work alone. One-fifth would like to take transit, 16% would like to car/vanpool and 5% would like to walk or bicycle. Changing car-dependency and the emissions associated with growing car travel requires that we give people the options they want, or remove the obstacles to the use of alternate modes. Overall, however, communities' adoption of recommendations will gauge how they are perceived, before and after.