Rather, it must be developed within the context of a larger community vision. After all, our transportation system is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is to support our economy by moving people and products efficiently from place to place. The end is to increase the mobility of our citizens in a way that enhances community livibility and quality of life. For example, we can have the best roads in the world from an engineering standpoint, but if we put jobs on one side of town and housing on the other side, we will overload the system, create traffic problems, and erode quality of life.
Access management is another example.
No matter how good our roads from a physical standpoint, if we allow various towns to capture a section of a state highway as a local mainstreet, we will delay transit and undermine our economy. The point is that we don t start with a transportation policy. We start with a community vision and then develop our transportation policy to serve that vision which means that it must be developed in the context of a variety of other decisions concerning housing, land use and economic development. I think we already have a community vision, and it isn t new. In fact, it was born 30 years ago when we first enacted Oregon's land use planning program.