| Issue 53 | September 29, 1995 |
Making the Grade
The NJ Dept. of Transportation is developing a set of performance measures as tools to evaluate the NJ's transportation system's progress toward the goals established in the recently published state-wide transportation plan (Transportation Choices: 2020). DOT says "the result of the overall work effort will be a report card to evaluate the quality of New Jersey's transportation systems and services." Sustainable transportation advocates favor adoption of benchmarks or standards able to determine whether policies and investments promote traffic congestion, open space consumption, degradation of communities, pollution and other impacts, or whether they offer solutions to these problems. NJ DOT has designed an extensive consulting and public outreach process for developing the report card. The first public meeting, held Sept. 27, was a wide open brainstorming session that provided little indication of NJ DOT's thinking or direction regarding transportation system performance standards. For more information on the report card and the NJ transportation plan, contact NJ DOT's Transportation Systems Planning Office at 609-530-2866. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has drafted a discussion paper that identifies over 50 possible benchmarks or performance measures for transportation systems, grouped in general areas like accessibility, mode share, land use and safety. Call 212-777-8181 for a copy.
