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31 URBAN REDEVELOPMENT and HIGHWAY PLANNING Carl Feiss

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31 URBAN REDEVELOPMENT and HIGHWAY PLANNING Carl Feiss 31 URBAN REDEVELOPMENT AND HIGHWAY PLANNING Carl Feiss, Chief, Community Planning and Development Branch, Division of Slum Clearance and Urban Redevelopment, Housing and Home Finance Agency It is a very real privilege for me to major provisions of the Act in which speak at this annual meeting of the streets and highways have an important Highway Research Board Committee on role and which the Administrator must Land Acquisition and Control of Adja• take into .account in arriving at his cent Areas, first because I am not a decisions. highway expert, and second, because I The first of these is the requirement consider, as a city planner, that it is that any plan for slum clearance and an important opportunity to be able to urban redevelopment must conform to a talk to men who are trying to solve the general plan for the development of problems of our highways through the locality as a whole. The second fundamental research. requires that a redevelopment plan Before I go too far m what I have to "shall be sufficiently complete (1) to say, I want to make my position clear mdicate its relationship to definite local to you. Mine is the fundamental as• objectives as to appropriate land uses sumption that cities are for people, and improved traffic, public transporta• not automobiles. What I am going on tion, etc.," and provides further, "that to say is based on this assumption. the Administrator take such steps as Also, I hope to persuade you that in he deems necessary to assure consist• planning for the rebuilding of our ency between the redevelopment plan obsolete communities or buildmg of and any highways or other public im• new cities, one objective could be provements in the locality receiving designing the city so well that people fuancial assistance from the Federal would not have to use automobiles in Works Agency" (now the Department of going to work or play, and the city Commerce). would be so attractive that no one The Administrator is also directed would want to leave it, even on Sunday. by the Act to "encourage the operations Or, I suppose we could reverse the of such local public agencies as are objective and, instead of designing established on a State or regional Utopia, we could des^ autopia - the (within a State), or unified metropolitan automotive city in which total mobility basis or as are established on such other is the objective, all people live in basis as permits such agencies to con• trailers and we abandon the quiet tribute effectively toward the solution of residential street for the highspeed community development or redevelop• domestic highway. ment problems on a State, or regional Either way, or by some compromise (within a State) or unified metropolitan between the two, we still should have basis." people as the basic consideration, with One of the basic considerations in those bright shiny gadgets running on planning for the development or re• macadam and concrete sluice ways as development of any area eligible for servants, not masters. Today, I am financial assistance under Title I is the afraid that the question as to who is relationship of the area to the street master is still an open one. Research and highway work which serves the city into fundamental objectives is essential and the locality. The location and if we are to resolve the point. character of existing or planned major In extending Federal financial as• streets or highways in the vicmity ot a sistance to any slum clearance or re• proposed redevelopment project will development project under Title I of the not only influence but may be the prm- Housing Act of 1949, there are two cipal factor in the determination of the 32 new uses in the project area. It is and development if redevelopment important m any case that the street planning is to proceed in a manner system of any redevelopment project which will accomplish the objectives of be mtegrated with the major streets all agencies concerned. and highways of the community and the We have said that the results of locality, and that redevelopment plans urban highway planning and research be prepared with full knowledge of any are indispensable to sound planning for proposed changes or improvements in development and redevelopment. On the major street or highway systems. the other hand, we believe that the Problems of traffic and parking and proper replanning of worn out or public safety and convenience must be arrested areas of our cities can be an carefully considered and provisions important factor in justifying and included in redevelopment project plans supporting the need for realization of which will best serve the new uses in the street and highway plans. the area as well as the community as a whole, and which will be consistent with PSTCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH the long range plans for street and highway improvement in the locality. It seems to me that we must con• Applications received to date by this tinually search for an understanding of Agency from many cities throughout some of the following questions behind the country have focused attention on the human behavior as it relates to flie importance of urban highway programs automobile. Let me suggest here a in the general planning being done for partial list .of both psycholog^ical and the development of these communities social-psychological problems we as as a whole. planners and you as researchers should Solution of problems of traffic, consider. Traffic volume and roadway parking, provision of terminal facil• construction research and analysis will ities, ease and convenience of intercity have greater value to all of us if we and interregional access to areas now keep alive studies of this suggested type. devoted to or proposed for industrial or commercial uses, together with other QUESTION NO. 1. Why do people want problems attending the continued de• to own automobiles? centralization of commerce and Indus• try and shifts in population to the sub• This question has several possible urban and rural areas, are basic to answers, any or all of which may be the development of sound plans for land pertinent to our studies. We know that use and for the provision of community convenience is not the only reason for facilities and services. The conclusion auto ownership. By this I mean con• has been inescapable, that lacking vp- venience of travel from place of resi• to-date scientific information such as dence to place of work or between results from modern urban traffic and places of work. We know that many parking studies and a clear understand• people make trips by car v^o could do ing of those factors which influence and so better by public conveyance at less establish the basis for design of the cost and, in many instances, within the major street and highway system, same time limits. We know that the planning for the future development al housewife often uses the car for shop• our cities or for redevelopment of worn ping when again she could do it as out areas within them cannot proceed conveniently by public conveyance or by with any assurance that our planning walking. We know that there are a will help us to avoid the recurrence of great many unnecessary trips made and the very situations we seek to correct. eiq>erience in the last war during the We are convinced, therefore, that restrictions on gasoline and tires there is need for close liaison and a indicated that many automobile activities free interchange of information between could be curtailed, although we rec• the local redevelopment agencies and ognize that commensurate gearing up the local, State and Federal agencies of public conveyances did not take place. responsible for urban highway planning We do know that poeple very often 33 acquire cars simply to own them or satisfaction for more people in the because they want a bright shiny gadget sense of motion and speed. One of our which they can show off. Part of the most serious problems in residential custom of the country is that every neighborhoods is the high school kid family shall own a car - at least one. with the jalopy who spends whatever We have to accept this as part of the time he can in indulging m the satis• personal pride of each family and faction of high speeds and the dangerous recognize that any shift of population maneuvers of his not too well controlled planned for in urban redevelopment or vehicle. Until we know more about the development will, in all likelihood, fundamental satisfactions obtained in include a shift m automobile location gettmg behind a wheel and putting the in number approximate to the shift foot on the accelerator, we will not in the number of families. have a full understanding of how to control traffic and design our cities QUESTION NO. 2. Why is the auto• accordingly. mobile used as an instrument of re• creation? QUESTION NO. 4. How does one design a street pattern for psychological and The automotive week-end, which is physiological safety? one of the phenomena of American living, requires much research and This IS perhaps the most difficult of analysis. In other countries the week• all the research problems in this area end IS a day of rest or is devoted to on which we need immediate help. Until work in the garden or around the home. such time as automobiles are equipped "Let's go for a drive", is the standard with radar and automatically slow down statement of the American family on or stop when they approach each other Sunday and the hegira from the city to or a telephone pole or a slippery curve the country and return or tours within or a pedestrian and the question of the cities, cause one of the major safety is taken out of the pilot's hands, problems which we face in handlmg the design of new streets and the re• week-end traffic.
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