CNU Transportation Summit: Day three wrap-up

Day three at the CNU Transportation Summit in Portland consisted mostly of discussion of how to refine the Congress’ ideas for a sustainable transportation network. This was the largest of these summits to date, with 180 in attendance.

The Congress’ idea of the network model is an attractive one. It stresses the importance of the “last mile” and reorients the development of the urban transportation system to what cities were originally meant to orient to to begin with: people.

There are, however, some possible weaknesses. The majority of commerce — especially wholesale level commerce — doesn’t tend to move on foot. While a city can survive a clog to the single passenger auto network, a city cannot survive a clog to delivery services and wholesale distribution. Will warehousing and industry need to relocate into the urban grid, as it existed prior to the industrial park movement of the 20th Century? The issue remains unresolved.

The bigger issue, however, is how to turn the proposed principles into an implementable concept. Does this come in the form of changing Federal laws and regulations, or developing standards and manuals for engineers and planners, or a political process that creates demand from elected officials? Attendees of the CNU Transportation Summit had numerous ideas but no comprehensive answer to this challenge.

All in all, a great event, and all of the presentations should be up on the CNU web site sometime in the next week, if not sooner. Thanks to all the folks who made it possible.