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Courtesy of Citizens for a Better Environment |
The
Metropolitan Council manages a computer model that predicts travel
behavior and measures environmental impacts. This model
is used by the Council, MnDOT, and consultants to answer questions such
as “how will transit ridership change if bus routes change,” or “how
many lanes should a road have to accommodate traffic levels 20 years
from now?” The model helps determine how hundreds of millions of
dollars are allocated annually in the Twin Cities region. To
accurately predict transportation outcomes, the model needs detailed
and timely information. Unfortunately, the Twin Cities region budgets
little money for data collection and analysis. We don’t have the
ability to collect timely “before and after” data to determine
how major investments such as highway expansion projects, business relocations,
or new suburban transit stations affect congestion, mode choice, or travel
patterns.
Unlike most major regions, our region does not even operate a land use
model. This makes it nearly impossible to estimate how transportation
investments might influence development patterns, and how both together
might influence how people get from place to place.
People
want to — and should ask — “What will happen
if we spend money on a certain transportation project?” Because
the answers that models give to these questions have so much weight in
decision-making, our region should have a land use model, our regional
transportation model should be state-of-the-art, and collecting and analyzing
the data that goes into these models should be a much higher priority.
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