Smart growth maintains the investments we have already made and ensures new investments in infrastructure don't come at the expense of what we already have, including our existing schools, transportation system and natural places.  With smart growth, our streets will be safer and more walkable, our downtowns will be vibrant and accessible, our air and water will be cleaner, and our parks, farms, and open spaces will be protected. All of this with more travel options and lower taxes. Steps to better managing growth include:

Smarter Land Use
Local Policies to Encourage Good Planning
Fix it First -- Invest Transportation and Tax Dollars Wisely
Make Developers Pay
Expand Metro, Bus, Pedestrian, and Bike Service
Provide Incentives for Commuter Choice
Revitalize Existing Communities
Protect Open Space

Smarter Land Use
We have the land, but the challenge is to use it wisely. We must promote mixed use development which creates sustainable communities by mixing jobs, housing, stores, and services in each community. We need transit oriented development, which places offices, homes, and stores around metro centers. This will decrease the need to make trips that require driving, and will increase our ability to walk, bike, and use transit to get to our destinations. Currently, 75 percent of trips made are related to running errands such as daycare, dry cleaning, and picking up milk, and are the reason for so much congestion. We shouldn't have to spend billions on new interstates just to pick up a quart of milk when we could develop in a way that would allow us to walk, bike, or use transit to make that same trip. In addition, it is important to develop land in suitable areas and avoid building on floodplains, coastal areas, and other disaster prone areas.

Local Policies to Encourage Good Planning
Local comprehensive plans, zoning and growth rates have a major impact on how a community grows, develops and manages its existing infrastructure. Communities can design plans to encourage development in certain areas, such as town centers and transit stations and discourage it in others, such as farmland.

Fix it First - Invest Transportation and Tax Dollars Wisely
Focus on solving our traffic congestion by repairing and improving problematic areas that already exist. Put money toward improving congested roads and interchanges, fixing potholes and bridges, improving intersections with timed traffic lights and left turn lanes, and improve bus and rail transit services. Instead of spending millions of transportation dollars on highway studies and road projects that will lead to costly and unwise development, money should be directed to existing communities to improve safety for walkers, bicyclists, and drivers, and to promote accessible and affordable public transportation choices.

Make Developers Pay
Developers should be required to pay impact fees to cover the costs of new roads, schools, and water and sewer lines, instead of that money coming from the pockets of taxpayers. In addition, developers should be required to pay for property tax impact studies on new developments so the public understands the true costs of proposed new development.

Expand Metro, Bus, Pedestrian, and Bike Service
People deserve to have transportation choices available to them so they can decide for themselves how to get around. Transit that is affordable and convenient offers commuters a choice and reduces traffic on the roadways. We need to plan communities that offer more accessible and frequent rail and bus services, commuter trains, bike trails and lanes, and safe places to walk.

Provide Incentives for Commuter Choice
Expand services like Park and Ride, Smart-Cards, reimbursements to employees who use transit, and subsidies for telecommuting. If we make it convenient and affordable for people to use transit, we all benefit.

Revitalize Existing Communities
Improving existing neighborhoods will attract new businesses, reduce crime, and improve schools. Many already established suburbs have potential for redevelopment. Vacant land, abandon store fronts, and huge parking lots in the inner suburbs could be revitalized with walkable, traditional town centers to create thriving, sustainable communities.

Protect Open Space
Enacting growth boundaries and parks & open space protections like those in Oregon, Tennessee and Colorado allow growth while providing farmland and nearby recreational opportunities in addition to local parks. 

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