By Molly O'Meara Sheehan, Worldwatch

Molly O'Meara Sheehan is a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC, where she studies the role of cities and information technology in solving environmental problems. She is a contributing author to the Institute's annual publications, State of the World and Vital Signs, and regularly writes for World Watch magazine.

By fostering safe streets for pedestrians and cyclists and investing in public transportation, cities can not only boost their attractiveness to children but also lighten their burden on the planet.

Portland's Positives

Portland, the top city for children in this year's Kid-Friendly Cities Report Card, enjoys good air quality in part because it has invested in buses, bicycle paths, and light rail lines that offer people greater mobility with less pollution. By reducing the need for driving, Portland also emits less climate-altering carbon emissions per person from transportation than other major U.S. cities. More car-reliant cities such as Atlanta, this year's lowest-ranking city for kids, not only suffer worse air quality but also contribute disproportionately to global climate change. Worldwide, road transportation is the fastest-growing source of the carbon emissions that warm the atmosphere.

Over the past several decades, spurred by Oregon laws requiring regional transportation and land use planning, Portland has adopted both building and transportation policies that make streets welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists. To avoid expanses of alienating blank walls, the city requires that ground-floor windows and public art be incorporated into new public buildings. The city's transportation department and police department have teamed up in a "traffic-calming" program to deter speeding on city streets, especially those near schools. The city now has 240 kilometers of bikeways, and requires bicycle parking to accompany new construction.

The Portland area is now trying to apply the lessons learned in revitalizing its downtown to revamping its suburbs. The latest plan is to channel the bulk of future growth to nine regional centers that are to be interconnected by light rail. Up to 85 percent of new development is to take place no farther than a five-minute walk from a transit stop. The first segment of the light rail network, opened in 1990, runs east from downtown Portland; the second line, opened in 1998, traces the city's western corridor. A lane of light rail can move 16 times more people per hour than a lane of highway can. Without the west-side rail link, planners estimate that they would have needed eight new parking garages and two extra lanes on major highways.

The Other Side

In contrast, the state of Georgia has historically devoted the bulk of transportation resources to highways, particularly in Atlanta's northern suburbs, while investing little in Atlanta's public transportation. With many miles of highway and few real alternatives to the private car, Atlanta is one of the most dangerous U.S. cities for walking, according to the Surface Transportation Policy Project, which found that some 185 pedestrians were killed there in 1997 and 1998.

Between the 1980s and 1990s, according to researcher Arthur Nelson, metropolitan Portland and Atlanta have seen comparable growth in population, but Portland has benefitted from slower growth in vehicle traffic, reduced commuting time, cuts in air pollution and fuel use, and an increase in neighborhood quality. Recently, concerns in Atlanta about increased air pollution and decreased quality of life have allowed Georgia's governor to move more in the direction of Oregon, creating a powerful new regional agency to coordinate transportation and land use in the Atlanta area.

Adapted from Worldwatch Paper 156, "City Limits: Putting the Brakes on Sprawl," available from Worldwatch (1-800-555-2028).