In a new report from Nelson\Nygaard, transportation planners proposed an overhaul of the conventional “transportation demand management” plan to “manage” their communities’ dependence on single-occupancy vehicles, rather than simply manage peak traffic flow.
Transportation demand management is sometimes used by cities to accomplish driver-focused goals, like cutting congestion at rush hour, but it’s rapidly evolving into an umbrella term that encompasses everything from limited, local strategies, such as workplace bike-to-work challenges, to sweeping and impactful ones, like building great transit systems.
The authors argue, though, that even the most well-intentioned TDM plans don’t usually do enough to change how people get around — and that many are tantamount to “tweaking the operations of streets and highways to accommodate ever more cars.”