Joe,
I don’t think we have much hope for NC planners.
You can take a look at NC’s Transit 2001 plan, that is still featured on the NCDOT site to realize that NC planners come from the same line of thinking as the planners in Virginia. They think their job is to do whatever they can to force development around transit. Instead of transit meeting the needs of the people, the people must meet the needs of transit.
The 2001 plan discusses “livable communities” and a renewed emphasis on:
– Accommodating pedestrians
– Enhancing streetscapes
– Creating visually attractive public spaces;
– Preserving natural areas
– Restraining and restricting motor vehicles and traffic in heavily developed areas and activity centers; and
– Providing extensive, fully-integrated public transportation. [Emphasis added]
I discuss a lot of these transit-oriented development issues in one of my reports. Roy also discusses these issues in his monograph on sustainable growth.
