Survey shows most people want more transit, walkable places

In many communities around Greater Washington, attempts to improve transit, accommodate walkers and bicyclists or do infill development are often controversial. But a new survey suggests that public support for these and other measures is high in both urban and suburban areas.

Over the past 2 years, the Transportation Planning Board, which coordinates road and transit planning efforts across the DC area, has identified ways to improve the region’s transportation network to support future growth. As part of the process for creating the Regional Transportation Priorities Plan, TPB surveyed area residents on what transportation issues mattered to them.

TPB mailed out 10,000 inquiries to randomly selected addresses across their planning area, which includes 13 cities and counties in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The agency received 660 responses, and the results are surprising.

First, TPB gave survey respondents a list of 14 transportation challenges in the region and asked them to rate each one’s significance on a scale of 1 to 5. The top four responses were transit crowding, repairing Metro, roadway congestion, and road repair needs. Respondents gave each of those issues an average score of 4 or higher.

Survey takers also ranked as major challenges the distances between housing and jobs, pressure to develop open space, and inadequate bus service. Pedestrian and bicyclist safety and building around Metro were at the bottom of the list, but with average scores of 3.27 and 3.26, people still considered them significant issues.

Planners broke out the scores by where people lived and how they commuted to work. Surprisingly, people’s responses were similar whether they lived in the urban core or the inner and outer suburbs, or whether they drove, carpooled, took transit, walked, or biked to work.

While this is a small sample, it suggests that people across Greater Washington want more options in how they get around and what kind of communities to live in. This survey lines up with findings from other studies that there’s a lot of demand for compact, walkable, transit-served neighborhoods.

The DC area is a national leader in creating and sustaining places like this, whether traditional urban neighborhoods in DC or in newer suburban downtowns. But there’s still a small supply of these places relative to demand, especially the ones that are safe and have high-quality public services. As a result, prices for these places can be prohibitively expensive, and people who might otherwise choose a walkable, transit-served community may opt instead for one where they have to drive everywhere, putting further strain on our transportation network.

Yet many neighbors and sometimes even community leaders fight attempts to make TPB’s proposals a reality, whether it’s building homes near a Metro station, giving cyclists a safe route across downtown DC, or extending transit to underserved areas. While the opposition may be vocal, this survey shows that in reality, most people are fine with these changes, provided they’re done in a sensitive manner.

Public input is an important part of any planning process, but planners and community leaders often hear only from a very small segment of the public that’s opposed to any change, good or bad. Surveys like this can help them understand what people actually want and care about.