Madison's automobile congestion problems have progressively gotten worse over the last several years. When one looks at the statistics for Dane County and the Madison area, this comes as no surprise. The number of motor vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in Dane County grew from 3.0 billion VMT in 1990 to 4.9 billion VMT in 2004, an increase of 63%. This is over 2 and one-half times Dane County's population growth rate of 23% (450,730 - 367,085) during the same period, so population increases alone do not explain why traffic levels have increased in Madison.

In fact, the recently adopted MPO transportation 2030 plan shows the basis for Madison's increasing traffic problems lies not with Madison residents, but rather with non-residents - those who commute to Madison, daily, usually alone in their vehicle.

In 2000, there were almost 60,000 workers commuting to the City of Madison from other Dane County communities in addition to the 16,000 commuting from eight adjacent counties. This represented a 14% increase from 1990, which continued to put increasing travel demands on the arterial roadway system in the Madison area.

The percentage of workers commuting to work in Dane County who drove alone has continued to increase, while the percentage of workers using alternative means of transportation has decreased. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage share of drive alone work trips countywide increased from 68% to 75%. The percentage share of drive alone work trips by City of Madison residents rose from 60% to 65%.

The overall number of commuters taking transit and bicycling to work increased in the City of Madison from 1990 to 2000 but the percentage share of trips still declined, suggesting a higher growth in personal automobile driving than transit riding and bicycling. The number of residents of Dane County cities and villages who worked in the place they resided decreased from 62% in 1990 to 56% in 2000.

Madison Area Bus Advocates testified that the MPO plan needed to provide greater support for a regional bus transit system accompanied by transportation demand reduction (TDM) incentives to encourage alternatives to solo driving at the public hearing on the MPO plan last fall. Unfortunately, MABA’s comments were just given lip service in the MPO’s final plan.

Case in point: in response to extensive comments that the plan needs to provide programs that offer positive incentives for use of alternative to driving personal automobiles, the MPO’s response is as follows: "The plan proposes a balanced approach that includes enhanced transit service, improved pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and ridesharing/TDM services and programs (e.g., subsidized bus passes), as well as strategies (e.g., parking management) that recognize the high costs of driving."

But the plan forecasts a 50% increase in motor vehicle travel in the region by 2030, from 12,187,307 vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per day in 2000 to 18,268,751 VMT. http://www.madisonareampo.org/regional_comprehensive_plan_2030.htm http://www.madisonareampo.org/Plan%20Elements/Appendices.pdf

Where the MPO plan errs is that it develops its forecasts and recommendations based on the assumption that long distance commuting will continue to increase as it did in past decades. It may not and in fact should not.

For example, in forecasting that county and city employment will increase by 1.14% and 1.04% per year, respectively; it is highly speculative to say that the earlier trends of people who will be coming to work in Madison will live in communities located outside of Madison; or that people coming to work in Dane County will live in adjacent counties just because that has been the trend up to now. Yet the MPO plan assumes just that. It then proceeds to recommends numerous costly and disruptive road and highway expansions in the Madison area based on those unsustainable levels of automobile commuting continuing, rather than on implementing strategies to reduce inefficient and excessive personal automobile commuting in the area.

The increase in motor vehicle driving that the MPO accepts as unchangeable would cause countless more days in travel in the future with livability in the Madison area being increasingly degraded. For example, Madison area had 9 days in 2005 during which air quality health advisories were issued, resulting in higher public health risk to Madison residents, in addition to the increasing risks associated with more fast moving motor vehicles operating on our streets and arterials. The number of days that Madison experiences health advisories is likely to increase significantly unless measures are adopted now to curb excessive motor vehicle travel. Yet the plan recommends no such measures, and proceeds to recommend roadway capacity expansion instead.

Why is it that air health advisories aren't taken seriously in Madison? Madison needs to accept more responsibility for seeing that health advisories are adequately publicized and taken more seriously in the future, especially for the sake of Madison area children who may not be aware of the hazards of overexertion on those days.

On September 21, 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced stricter national air quality standards to protect citizens from the harmful health effects caused by worsening air quality were being adopted. Called the "National Ambient Air Quality Standards" (NAAQS), the regulations decrease amount of fine and coarse particulate matter (PM) that ambient outdoor air may contain and still be in compliance with national air quality standards. http://www.epa.gov/oar/particlepollution/naaqsrev2006.html

The EPA’s regulations lower the particle standard by nearly 50 percent, from 65 micrograms of particles per cubic meter to 35 micrograms of particles per cubic meter of air. The lower amount is intended to reduce premature deaths, heart attacks and hospital admissions for people with heart and lung disease.

The stricter standards must take effect in 2015, but it's not like those tougher standards aren't needed now - they are - and we ought to be reducing the pollution now, not waiting for 8 more years of harm to be inflicted, particularly on Madison's children. By failing to act in the interim, we are jeopardizing not only the health of Madison residents and non-residents alike, but also the ability of the Madison area to attract industry in the future. The UW Population Health Institute published a study in 2005 that ranked Dane County and other Wisconsin counties according to how healthy it is to live in the county. Dane County missed out on being among the healthiest counties, in part due to its poor air quality score. The study attributed the poorer air quality in Dane County to too much motor vehicle traffic and suggested Dane County consider alternatives to automobile use along with stronger adherence to smart urban planning as a way to move up in the statewide county health rankings. Nevertheless, the number of vehicle miles traveled in Dane County has continued to increase. The MPO projects even further increases, rather than proposing new transportation demand measures to supplement the ones already in existence, and expansion of its mass transit (bus) system.

Motor vehicle pollution is already the largest source of ozone and particulate pollution in Dane County. MPO planners should have developed a plan that reduces motor vehicle emissions and encourages greater use of non motorized modes of travel and mass transit. Yet they did no such thing. Madisonians will suffer in the future as a result.

The MPO plan is also inconsistent with the City of Madison Climate Change Protection plan and the Mayor's agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Driving cars adds millions of tons of greenhouse gases to our atmosphere, which are linked with global warming. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) published a groundbreaking new study this year finding that public transportation use saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline every year, the equivalent of 108 million cars filling up, almost 300,000 each day. These savings result from the efficiency of carrying multiple passengers in each vehicle; the reduction in traffic congestion from fewer automobiles on the roads; and the varied sources of energy for public transportation. http://www.madison.com/communities/mabaa/pages/save1.php?php_page_set=0

For each gallon of gasoline "saved" (not burned in a motor vehicle), approximately 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (and lesser amounts of other even more potent greenhouse gases - methane, nitrous oxide, HFC gases) are prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere, where those gases would have contributed to even more global warming than we are already seeing today. http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05004.pdf

On February 9, 2007, ICF International released a new analysis of the role of transportation demand management (TDM) strategies in reducing air pollutant emissions. Despite substantial improvements in emissions control technologies, motor vehicles continue to be a major source of air pollution. In the United States, many areas will need to reduce multiple air pollutants in order to comply with health-based air quality standards. By reducing vehicle travel or shifting travel to less congested periods, TDM programs can be a meaningful component of regional air quality improvement plans.

The role of TDM as an emissions reduction strategy is evolving as many parts of the country face air quality challenges associated with new national air quality standards for ozone and fine particulate matter, as well as concerns about global climate change. In addition to reducing air pollution, TDM programs have ancillary benefits in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to a more multimodal transportation system, and enhancing the quality of life in the community. TDM strategies reduce emissions of all air pollutants from motor vehicles by encouraging the use of transit, bicycling, walking; carpooling, telecommuting or by encouraging people to live closer to where they work or regularly visit, thus reducing the number of motor vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the community. http://www.icfi.com/newsroom/news.asp?ID=28

On November 1, 2006, on a motion by Eileen Bruskewitz, seconded by Robbie Webber, the Madison Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) voted to approve adoption of the Regional Transportation Plan 2030 for the Madison Metropolitan Area and Dane County, with only minor changes and additions that didn't reflect any of our concerns. http://www.madisonareampo.org/Otheredoc_pdf/MPO%20Minutes.pdf

The MPO 2030 Plan should be replaced with a more sustainable transportation plan for the Madison metropolitan area, one which relies more heavily on non motorized travel and expanded use of mass transit as opposed to increasing personal motor vehicle use. The redesign of that plan should begin now. This matter is urgent and can’t wait for the next iteration of the plan.