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improvements that increase the capacity for single-occupancy

vehicles, that is, roads not dedicated to carpools or buses.

Yet such capacity increases can reduce congestion, which in

turn can reduce many types of pollution.

On the other hand, CMAQ funds can be spent on activi-

ties that increase congestion.  One activity, traffic calm-

ing, consists of reducing road capacities by, among other

things, installing blockades in roads to reduce vehicle

speeds.  Such blockades may make sense on uncongested neigh-

borhood streets where residents want to make sure drivers

stay under legal speed limits for safety reasons.  But New

Urbanists are now installing various forms of blockades on

major congested collector and arterial roads with the goal

of making the streets more "pedestrian friendly."

One such blockage, a "bumpout," consists of an exten-

sion of a corner curb into the street, preventing autos from

using the street's shoulder as a right-turn lane.  That

means that drivers turning right must slow down in the

stream of traffic, delaying everyone behind them.  When used

on busy streets, traffic calming devices do not noticeably

increase pedestrian traffic, but they do reduce the flow and

speed of auto traffic.  Since slower speeds mean an increase

in many forms of pollution, traffic calming leads to dirtier

air.

Advocates of traffic calming have a remarkably flippant

attitude toward people who use automobiles.  Cars should

move "at the speed of a horse and buggy" in downtowns and

other parts of a city, says Toronto urban planner Ken Green-

berg.  "A lot of people are furious about tampering with

their ability to drive fast," says Florida traffic engineer

Walter Kulash, "but they aren't politically organized."31

Supporters of traffic calming also seem to confuse cause and

effect.  "Anywhere that doesn't have congestion, you proba-

bly wouldn't want to be there," says Greenberg.32  The

typical traffic calmer's rationale seems to be that, since

popular places are congested, creating congestion in unpopu-

lar places will make those places more popular.

In at least one case, CMAQ funds have been used to

subsidize a high-density apartment building.  The developer

stated that he planned to build an apartment building on

that site, but without the subsidy he would have built to a

much lower density.33  The high-density development, of

course, will actually lead to an increase in congestion and

congestion-related pollution.