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people's movements to places where people did not want
to go.
Highway planning was not perfect, of course. One
problem was pricing: funding roads out of gasoline taxes
created excess demand for the most expensive roads and
failed to regulate peak-hour demand. Another problem was
conflicts of interest: a major freeway interchange could
greatly alter local land values, and few people were sur-
prised when developers with representatives on state highway
boards often turned out to own land where such interchanges
were to be located.
In the 1970s urban planners and environmentalists
raised a new criticism, charging that highway planners
failed to assess the connection between transportation and
land use. Highways, said the urban planners, were destruc-
tive of urban and rural environments, promoting sprawl,
congestion, and pollution. The solution was a longer term
planning process that accounted for more variables, such as
pollution, land use, and alternatives to the automobile.
Such a planning process was built into ISTEA. But the
increased complexity of ISTEA planning only created more
opportunities for fads and special-interest groups to domi-
nate the process. The fad currently endorsed by the U.S.
Department of Transportation is New Urbanism.
Transit and Urban Form, a report sponsored and distrib-
uted by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal
Transit Administration, focuses on the connections between
transportation and land use. The report endorses most New
Urban concepts, including higher population densities or
"compact cities," mixing commercial and residential uses,
and creating pedestrian-friendly environments.73
As previously noted, New Urbanism provides significant
benefits for several major interest groups: central city
officials, downtown businesses, urban planners, urban envi-
ronmentalists, and construction and engineering firms. But
it is detrimental to the interests of most urban residents
because it leads to significant increases in congestion.
As is typical of New Urbanism, Transit and Urban Form
downplays the increases in congestion by focusing not on
congestion but on market share for transit and VMT per
capita. "A doubling of residential densities," says Transit
and Urban Form, "correlates with a decrease of 20 percent to
30 percent in VMT per capita."74 But that optimistic as-
sumption implies a 40 to 60 percent increase in miles driven