Envisioning Efficiency: How Scenario Planning Can Lead to More Cost-Effective Transportation Investments

Planners and academics have, for much of the past half century, studied development patterns to assess whether certain patterns are more costly than others for providing public infrastructure and services. A robust literature demonstrates that compact development can help reduce public expenditures for a host of public services and facilities. Armed with this understanding, planners in U.S. metropolitan areas have in recent years been using iterative scenario planning techniques to identify which future growth options might result in more efficient use of public funds. This paper traces the “costs of sprawl” and scenario planning literatures as they relate to transportation infrastructure costs and provides an analysis of 187 scenarios developed by U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) since 2000. Using case study and meta-analytical techniques, this paper shows show that compact development patterns are less costly per person for road infrastructure than more dispersed patterns and that scenario planning is a valuable method for understanding these relationships.