The New York State Department of Transportation wants local governments to plan new development in their towns according to principles of smart growth and transit-oriented development. To this end, NYSDOT launched the Smart Planning Program website (shown at right) in June as a resource for local decision-makers interested in linking land use and transportation planning. Unfortunately, the website itself appears to be the only functioning part of the program.

Take, for example, the “Funding Opportunities” page of the site, a likely first stop for any local planner looking for state assistance. Every link provided is to an external program, from either other state agencies or from the federal government. There appears to be no DOT smart growth funding programs whatsoever.

The website’s sole original content is a PowerPoint presentation which explains smart growth concepts and two checklists for local planners adapted from documents created by New Jersey Future. The rest of the site consists of links to other NYSDOT programs, with little guidance (other than one e-mail address that questions can be sent to) for local leaders who want to use these programs to reshape their communities. Compare this to, for example, Massachusetts’ Smart Growth Online Toolkit, which is full of products like model bylaws that localities can use as a basis for drafting smart-growth legislation, or NJDOT’s NJ FIT website, which actually lists examples of state-led smart growth projects.

New York has its own smart-growth success stories, such as the towns of Virgil and Livonia, which are specifically mentioned in the presentation. Why are these not posted more prominently? More importantly, rather than passively encouraging communities to step forward, NYSDOT should be aggressively pursuing projects that make the necessary linkages and actively soliciting ideas from communities across the state. MTR would nominate the Community Plan for the Sheridan Expressway as showcase project number one.

The stars are aligned for substantive changes to the state’s policy: NYSDOT Commissioner Glynn clearly understands the need for smarter development, Governor Paterson is also in favor, and the public is increasingly supportive of linking transportation planning with development patterns. Seventy-five percent of Americans say that public transportation and smarter development are better ways to reduce congestion than building new roads, according to the National Association of Realtors. NYSDOT should have a website that more fully reflects this enthusiasm and provides real world examples of the work it is doing. As Polish philosopher Alfred Korzybski said, “The map is not the territory.”